The Sudanese Presidency reaffirmed its acceptance on Wednesday of a United Nations presence in Darfur in a “technical, material and logistical capacity” and left the door open for further troop deployments.
The statement appeared to contradict earlier comments by President Omar al-Beshir to the press that only “funding” was needed for the African Union troops currently deployed in Darfur.
The Presidency “has agreed to a UN role of offering technical, material and logistical support to the AU forces there”, presidential spokesperson Fadel Badri told the official Suna news agency.
Badri renewed Sudan’s rejection of a deployment of UN troops in Darfur but added that a mechanism existed for bringing in more forces.
“If additional troops are needed, it is the tripartite mechanism consisting of the government, the UN and the AU that will determine the number of those additional forces, which will be African and under an African command”, he said.
Last August, the UN Security Council approved a resolution calling for a new 17Â 300-troop UN peacekeeping force to replace or supplement the much smaller and poorly equipped AU mission.
Sudan strongly objected to the resolution and instead a three-phase agreement was worked out to bring in blue-helmeted UN advisers to provide technical and logistical aid.
New Mexico governor Bill Richardson has been on a mission to Sudan this week to try to convince Khartoum to allow UN forces into the country.
Also in Khartoum was UN interim special representative Jan Eliasson, who met on Wednesday with Foreign Minister Lam Akol and a number of presidential advisors.
Like Richardson, he will be visiting Darfur.
The region’s conflict has killed about 200Â 000 people and displaced two million more in nearly four years, according to UN figures disputed by Sudanese authorities.
The war erupted in February 2003 when rebels from minority tribes in the vast province of western Sudan took up arms to demand an equal share of national resources, prompting a heavy-handed crackdown from Sudanese government forces and their Janjaweed proxy militia. — AFP