Sudan rejects UN peace mission
2007-02-16 17:31
Cannes - Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir on Friday rejected a UN peace force for Darfur and said he would not grant visas to UN rights monitors who want to visit the strife-torn region.
Beshir said an international force in Darfur would remain under the aegis of the African Union and that the United Nations would be confined to a "technical and logistics role".
He also said that the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council, led by Nobel peace laureate and anti-landmines campaigner Jody Williams, would not be allowed to travel to Darfur because its members were biased.
"There are members of that delegation who in our view are not impartial therefore it is difficult to say that they will be honest and reflect reality," Beshir told a news conference on the final day of an Africa-France summit.
The two-day gathering in the Riviera resort of Cannes has been dominated by concerns about the conflict in Darfur.
At least 200 000 people have been killed and more than 2.5 million displaced in fighting since 2003.
President Chirac urges Khartoum
President Jacques Chirac opened the summit by adding his voice to pleas for Khartoum to accept an international force for the western region as he warned of a humanitarian catastrophe.
Khartoum-backed Janjaweed militias and government forces are fighting rebels in Darfur in a conflict that has spilled over to eastern Chad and the north of the Central African Republic.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said on Thursday he was "very disappointed" by Sudan's refusal to allow the rights mission to Darfur and urged Khartoum to reconsider.
The UN chief is also waiting for Beshir to respond to his request last month to allow the dispatch of more than 2 300 UN troops to lay the groundwork for a robust joint AU-UN force to take over peacekeeping in Darfur from cash-strapped AU forces.
But Beshir gave no indication that he planned to bolster the current peace force, saying "it is clear that the African Union troops have the peacekeeping role".
"The United Nations is there to provide logistical, financial and technical support so that African Union can do its work," said Beshir.
Sudan late on Thursday signed an agreement with Chad and the Central African Republic pledging not to support rebels on each other's territories, but Chad quickly poured cold water over the deal.
Delegates from N'Djamena said similar agreements in the past had been broken. The presidents of Chad and the CAR have blamed Beshir directly for backing unrest in their own countries.