 SUDAN stepped up opposition to a United Nations peacekeeping mission for Darfur, warning that it would consider any country's pledge to supply police or troops to a UN force "a hostile act" and a "prelude to an invasion".
| ...warning that it would consider any country's pledge to supply police or troops to a UN force "a hostile act" and a "prelude to an invasion". |
The Sudanese statement follows a letter from the UN urging scores of governments to commit troops to a Darfur mission. Khartoum reiterated its "total rejection" of an August 31 Security Council resolution which approved a UN force of about 20,000 with the authority to use "all necessary means" to help restore calm in Darfur .
| “'They are trying to intimidate troop-contributing countries,' the US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, said.” |
In response to the Sudanese statement, the US convened an emergency session of the Security Council on Thursday, accusing Sudan of defying the will of the 15-nation body. "They are trying to intimidate troop-contributing countries," the US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, said. "Obviously, if no one volunteers to contribute forces to the Darfur mission [there won't be one], regardless of what Security Council does."
Mr Bolton tried to rally council support for a statement deploring Sudan's attempt at intimidation as the Bush Administration moved to increase international pressure on Sudan to allow UN peacekeepers into Darfur. The US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, on a tour of the Middle East, also urged Arab leaders to persuade Khartoum to let the UN intervene in the violence in Darfur. President George Bush's special envoy for Sudan, Andrew Natsios, met the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, on Thursday. |