This week, at least...
Sudan will accept African troops to protect observers in its troubled western Darfur region, but underlined any peacekeeping role would be limited to Sudanese forces, Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said yesterday.
| "Yeah. We can deal with it. Matter of fact, we're dealing with it now..." |
Ismail also said he had signed a Sudanese-UN pact pledging safe areas for up to 1 million African villagers uprooted by fighting in remote Darfur, which UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan sent to Security Council members on Friday. "We have to make a distinction between three categories. The presence of observers, the presence of protection forces for those observers and the presence of peacekeeping forces," Ismail told reporters in Khartoum when asked whether Sudan would accept African peacekeepers. "We don't have a problem with either the first or the second categories. As far as the third category is concerned ... this is the responsibility of the Sudanese forces." He added that Darfur, which the United Nations has called the world's worst humanitarian crisis, was a regional problem and Sudan was discussing it with bodies such as the African Union and the Arab League, due to hold an emergency meeting today. The AU is proposing sending up to 2,000 troops to protect its cease-fire monitors in Darfur and to serve as peacekeepers, but has yet to send an official request to Khartoum. Sudan has about three weeks left to show the UN Security Council it is serious about disarming marauding Arab militias known as Janjaweed, or face possible sanctions. |