The UN Security Council and the African Union (AU) said
Wednesday they agreed on a time table to hand over the AU
peacekeeping mission in Sudan's western Darfur region to a UN force
by January.
"What we both think is that a transition should take place and
by the beginning of next year there should be a UN operation," said
Britain's UN ambassador Emyr Jones Parry, who led a Security
Council delegation on a one-day visit to the AU headquarters in
Addis Ababa.
During the brief visit, the delegation discussed the handover of
the African force to a UN mission.
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"We agreed on how we would like to schedule that, of course we both
understand this can only be done with the consent of the government
in Khartoum," he told a press conference after the talks.
The AU peacekeeping force, known as the AU Mission in Sudan
(AMIS), is facing both under-financed and ill-equipped problems.
Parry said the force needed to be reinforced before the UN
takeover.
The current 7,000-strong AU force will be added to the level of
10,000, said a AU official, who declined to be named. The AU
official said the additional troops will likely come from Rwanda,
Nigeria and Ghana, and that NATO will likely provide helicopters
and other logistical support.
The visit by UN Security Council came at a crucial time for
Darfur, following the signing of May 5 peace agreement in Nigeria's
capital Abuja.
On May 5, only the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) faction, headed
by Minni Minnawi, signed the agreement. A rival SLA faction headed
by Abdel Wahed al-Nur, as well as the Justice and Equality
Movement, refused to sign the agreement, saying that it did not
meet their requirements.
(Xinhua News Agency June 8, 2006)
