By Tsegaye Tadesse
Saturday, June 16, 2007
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - U.N. Security Council ambassadors landed in Ethiopia on Saturday pledging to help the African Union run peacekeeping missions in Sudan and Somalia. The Darfur crisis was top of the agenda in closed-door talks at AU headquarters in Addis Ababa days after Khartoum agreed to allow a joint AU-UN force of at least 20,000 troops and police, but said command and control should be left to the AU. "The meeting debated the issue of Darfur at length," Britain's Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry told reporters later. "There was a clear understanding between the two sides of the desirability to move forward speedily on the hybrid force and the full implementation of the heavy-support package." The new joint force is not expected to be deployed until next year, and the "heavy support package" is an interim arrangement of about 3,000 military personnel from the United Nations to shore up the beleaguered AU force of 7,000 in Darfur. "We discussed how best to encourage the speediest progress on the political side between the government and the rebels," Jones said. "We also discussed the necessity for a ceasefire and an end to violence in Darfur." On Sunday, the 15 Security Council envoys fly to Sudan for talks with President Omar Hassan al-Bashir. International experts estimate 200,000 people have died in four years of war and 2.5 million others have been driven from their homes by rape, looting and killing in Darfur. Washington calls the violence genocide, a term European governments are reluctant to use. Khartoum says the Western media has exaggerated the conflict and that only 9,000 have been killed. It has said the majority of troops in the new hybrid force must be African. The United Nations, which will be expected to fund the mission, has said it wants overall command of the force. The talks with AU Commission Chairman Alpha Omar Konare also covered Somalia, where the AU says lack of funds mean African nations that had volunteered peacekeepers to help support the fragile interim government have been unable to do so. There are already 1,600 Ugandan soldiers patrolling for the AU in the capital Mogadishu, where they have been targeted by Islamist extremists waging a guerrilla insurgency. In another blow to peace efforts in the chaotic Horn of Africa nation, a long-awaited peace conference due to start this week was postponed for a second time. Jones said the Security Council delegation reiterated its backing for the AU mission in Somalia, and that it was crucial the government involve the broadest possible representation from the country's clans in its reconciliation efforts. AU officials said Konare and the ambassadors also discussed developments in Chad, Central African Republic, Ivory Coast, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the simmering border dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea.
The Security Council ambassadors travel to Ghana, Ivory Coast and DRC after Sudan.
Source: Reuters, June 16, 2007