United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan on Friday welcomed the landmark deal signed between the Khartoum government and the main rebel faction in Sudan’s Darfur region but urged the two other insurgent groups to sign as well.
”I welcomed the agreement and urged the other two parties to seize this historic moment and sign the agreement that will bring this tragic chapter in the history of Sudan to an end,” he told reporters.
He spoke here shortly after it was announced that a deal was signed in Abuja, Nigeria by representatives of Khartoum and the main faction of the Sudanese Liberation Movement (SLM), in the presence of host Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and African Union mediators.
But another Darfur rebel group, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), and a smaller faction of the divided SLM refused to sign, saying they would not accept the United Nations-sponsored deal.
Senior international envoys, including United States Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick and British Development Secretary Hilary Benn, had travelled to Abuja warning that failure to reach an agreement could also worsen the fragile humanitarian situation in Sudan.
”Implementation of the agreement once concluded would require that we immediately begin to strengthen the African Union force on the ground,” Annan said on his return from a visit to Washington.
”We would also need to intensify our own humanitarian efforts,” he added, citing a lack of sufficient resources to tackle needs in the strife-torn Sudanese region.
On Thursday, UN relief coordinator Jan Egeland, who is heading for Darfur this weekend, said the UN needed $650-million for Darfur this year and had received only 20% so far.
Meanwhile US Ambassador John Bolton said the accord was ”only a first step”.
”What this does for the American perspective is it reinforces our desire to move quickly to move to a transition to a UN-authorised peacekeeping force in Darfur and to speed up assistance for the (African Union force in Darfur) between now and
when the UN can take over,” he added.
He urged Khartoum to allow a UN assessment team into Darfur to do the preparatory work.
The proposed UN force would retain a strong African component from the AU mission but would be complemented by robust air assets and specialised units from non-African countries, including from Nato, which currently provides air transport for the AU force.
War has been raging since early 2003 in Darfur, a poverty-stricken desert region the size of France, and humanitarian officials estimate that as many as 300 000 civilians have died of disease, hunger and militia attacks. – Sapa-AFP