Sudan FM says UN harassing Khartoum over Darfur

KHARTOUM, Oct 21 (AFP) — Sudan charged Thursday that it was being harassed by the United Nations over the Darfur crisis because the world body was powerless to change the situation in Iraq or the Palestinian territories.

“The UN has lost its sense of direction in applying the international charter,” Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail told reporters, citing the Darfur issue to which he said the United Nations “pays a greater concern than it does to the situation in Iraq and Palestine.”

Describing this policy as “unfair”, Ismail said, “I defy the Security Council to convene a meeting in Gaza or Baghdad as it is intending to do for Darfur.”

Ismail was referring to a possible UN Security Council meeting in November in Nairobi, a rare gathering outside New York headquarters aimed at pushing forward the peace process in Sudan.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s top envoy to Sudan reiterated Wednesday his negative assessment of Khartoum’s performance in providing security to civilians in Darfur and containing what the world body has described as the world’s worst ongoing humanitarian crisis.

Jan Pronk’s spokeswoman charged that crimes and rapes were still being committed by the Janjaweed, Arab tribesmen who have been used as proxy militias by Khartoum since the start of the rebellion in Darfur in February 2003.

The UN Security Council has threatened sanctions on Sudan’s vital oil industry if Khartoum fails to rein in the militias.