UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said in Banjul on Sunday that he
would continue to press the eventual deployment of UN peacekeeping
force in Sudan's west Darfur region.
After meeting with Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmed
El-Bashir on the sidelines of the seventh AU summit, Annan said at
a press conference that they "agreed the immediate need to
strengthen the African Union mission in Darfur and to consolidate
the Darfur Peace Agreement."
"I would continue to press the eventual deployment of UN
peacekeeping force in Darfur," said Annan.
On this point, Annan added, "we agreed that dialogue has to
continue."
Annan said that President Bashir would prepare a plan for the
next six months which would be submitted to him by the end of this
month.
Both the UN and the AU hope to persuade the Sudanese government
to allow a UN force to take over peacekeeping duties from an
under-resourced AU force in the Darfur region, where conflict began
in 2003 when non-Arab tribes rebelled, accusing the Khartoum
government of neglect.
However the Sudanese government has issued a series of
uncompromising rejections of international troops.
On May 5 the Sudanese government and one Darfur rebel group
signed a peace agreement, but the agreement has been undermined by
the rejection of two other rebel groups.
Annan said that he and Bashir have agreed that those parties who
have not yet signed must "come on board" and those who have signed
must "effectively" implement the agreement.
A pledging conference will be held in Brussels on July 18, to
bring additional logistic support to AU forces for them to continue
their work effectively and to hold the ground until such a time the
UN force is deployed, according to Annan.
(Xinhua News Agency July 3, 2006)
