UN Security Council holds landmark meeting on Sudan in Nairobi

NAIROBI, Nov 18 (AFP) — The United Nations Security Council was to begin a rare meeting in Nairobi to focus on peace in Sudan, amid mounting alarm over the conflict raging in the country’s western region of Darfur.

UN Special Representative Jan Pronk makes a point in Nyala, South Darfur last week during a trip with Sudan Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Esmail to the troubled region.. (AFP).

The council has only met outside its headquarters in New York, on three previous occasions. The last time was 14 years ago.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is due to address the council.

The meeting in Nairobi on Thursday and Friday comes after the Khartoum government and Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), the country’s main southern rebel group, announced that a comprehensive deal to end their 21-year-old war is likely to be signed within days of negotiations resuming next week.

The Nairobi meeting also comes in the wake of mounting international criticism of the Khartoum government, notably over the allegedly forced relocation of deplaced civilians in Darfur, a region in west Sudan ravaged by armed conflict since February 2003.

It also coincides with a UN investigation into whether genocide has been committed in Darfur, where Arab militias allied to Khartoum are widely accused of responding to the rebel uprising with scorched earth and ethnic cleansing policies.

The Council has in the past threatened to impose sanctions on Sudan, which boasts important reserves of oil, if it fails to rein in the militias, known as Janjaweed.

Such punitive measures do not figure in a draft resolution due to be adopted in Nairobi.

A fresh round of talks with the Darfur rebel groups is due to start on December 10.

During the Nairobi meeting, the Council is expected to adopt a resolution calling for renewed efforts to cap marathon talks between Khartoum and the SPLM/A, a southern rebel group that rose up in 1983, with a comprehensive peace accord.

Such a deal, it is hoped, will boost peace efforts in Darfur.

Talks between the government and the SPLA intensified in 2002, since when a series of protocols addressing the root causes of Africa’s longest war, such as the sharing of wealth — especially oil resources — and political power, have been signed.