United States President George Bush told Sudan’s president in ”very clear” terms that his government must redouble efforts to make a deal with rebels at peace talks, the White House said on Tuesday.
In a phone call on Monday with President Omar al-Beshir, Bush urged the Sudanese leader to send his vice-president back to the peace talks in Abuja, Nigeria, said White House spokesperson Scott McClellan.
Vice-President Osman Taha abandoned the talks early, frustrated with the positions adopted by the rebels, McClellan said.
”The president requested that President Beshir send Vice-President Taha back to the peace talks in Abuja to help finalise a peace agreement,” he said.
”The president is making very clear that we have some concerns and that we also want to see the government continue to work with the rebel groups and others to get a peace agreement,” the spokesperson said, describing Monday’s dialogue between the two leaders as a ”good conversation”.
”We will be looking for the government of Sudan to follow through on what the president brought up in the call,” McClellan said, adding that the issue is a ”high priority” for the US administration.
”We are hopeful that they can move forward and reach an agreement. It is possible that there is some key differences that remain that need to be resolved,” said McClellan.
Sudan’s official Suna news agency reported that Beshir assured Bush of his resolve to end the three-year-old Darfur conflict that has left up to 300 000 people dead from violence and famine and 2,4-million homeless.
Negotiators from the Sudanese government and the two Darfur rebel groups face a Tuesday night deadline to reach a deal after African Union mediators gave the rebels a two-day extension.
Washington, which has accused Khartoum and its allied Janjaweed militia of genocide against non-Arab minority groups in Darfur, dispatched Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick to the Abuja talks on Monday.
State Department spokesperson Sean McCormack said Zoellick, the US point man on Sudan, met with all sides in the Darfur conflict, including a representative of the Khartoum government who stayed behind in Abuja.
But McCormack, speaking in Washington, signalled no progress.
”It is time for the international community to make it clear to all these groups they need to make the hard decisions, they need to make the hard decisions for peace so that the killing can be stopped,” McCormack said.
McCormack said Washington saw an eventual peace accord as a catalyst for the deployment of an effective UN security presence.
McClellan said that Bush, in Monday’s phone call, also stressed the need for Beshir to accept a United Nations peacekeeping mission in Darfur to replace the out-matched African Union troops currently on the ground there.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice meanwhile urged Morocco to secure Arab League support for an international force to go to Darfur, during a meeting with Moroccan Foreign Minister Mohamed Benaissa, McCormack said.
Rice wants the Arab League and the African Union to urge the Sudanese government to allow a UN-mandated peacekeeping force as well as a stronger AU force in Darfur. – AFP
