AP News, December 14th, 2007
Sudan has still not agreed to non-African troops or unrestricted night flights for the new 26,000-strong peacekeeping force for Darfur that is expected to take over on Jan. 1, a senior U.N. official said Thursday.
But Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Edmond Mulet said Sudanese leaders did take some "positive steps" on deployment of the joint U.N.-African Union force during discussions over the weekend in Lisbon, Portugal, on the margins of a European Union-African summit.
In June, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir agreed to the deployment of the hybrid force without preconditions to replace the beleaguered and underfunded 7,000-strong AU force now on the ground in Darfur.
The U.N. Security Council agreed the force should be predominantly African — at Sudan's insistence. Even though 90 percent of the ground troops and 75 percent of the proposed force are from Africa, Sudan has refused to approve Thai, Nepal and Nordic units, which the U.N. says are essential.
Mulet told reporters after briefing the Security Council said that he and another U.N. official met Sudanese officials in Lisbon and asked for "an official answer" on the Thai, Nepal and Nordic contingents. But they still have not received one, he said.
In keeping with Sudan's wish to see the early deployment of African units, Mulet said the first two battalions to be deployed will be from Egypt and Ethiopia.
The conflict in Sudan's western Darfur region has claimed more than 200,000 lives and uprooted 2.5 million people since ethnic African rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated government in 2003. Critics accuse Sudan of arming the janjaweed Arab militias that have terrorized Darfur villages — a charge Khartoum denies.
On night flights, the Sudanese agreed to allow them for medical evacuations "but we have stressed this is not enough for us," Mulet said.
"We do need a blank authorization to fly at all times," he said, adding that the issue will be discussed in upcoming talks in the Sudanese capital Khartoum.
U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said the Sudanese government should not be allowed "to pick and choose" which assets and assistance to accept.
He warned that if the Sudanese government does not cooperate, the Security Council would have to discuss measures including sanctions.
"There has been a record of the Sudanese government dragging its feet to come to agreement and dragging its feet in implementing agreement," Khalilzad told reporters.
He acknowledged the "limited progress" that has been made and called for more, saying the credibility of the Security Council and the hybrid force were at risk, along with the welfare of the people of Darfur.
Mulet said there was progress on other issues regarding the force. Sudan agreed to start talks on the Status of Forces Agreement proposed by the U.N. and AU rather than its own version which U.N. officials said would have made it impossible for the force to operate.
One Sudanese proposal would have allowed the government to "temporarily disable the communications network" in case of security operations to protect the country's sovereignty. Another would have required the force to provide "advance notification to the government for all staff, troop and asset movements."
Mulet said technical talks on the Status of Forces Agreement began Tuesday in Khartoum and were on a "fast track."
The government also agreed to release U.N. communications equipment which had been impounded for two months and to allow the U.N. to use a logistics facility in El Obeid in Darfur's neighboring region of Kordofan. It also agreed to allow seven helicopters to be based in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur, Mulet said.
