The African Union (AU) agreed on Wednesday to extend the mandate
of its peacekeeping force in Sudan's Darfur for three more months
until the end of this year.
The decision was made at a summit meeting of AU's Peace and
Security Council (PSC) on the sidelines of the general debate of
the UN General Assembly. Both UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir attended the meeting.
Burkina Faso President Blaise Campaore, the PSC chairman, told
reporters after the meeting that there has been an agreement to
extend the mandate of the AU force for three months until Dec. 31
while pushing for a dialogue between the Sudanese government and
the United Nations.
The UN Security Council adopted a resolution last month to
create a UN peacekeeping forces to take over the Darfur operations
from the under funded AU force. However, the deployment of UN
peacekeeping force does not get the consent of the Sudanese
Government.
Bashir reiterated his steadfast opposition to the UN deployment
when addressing the UN General Assembly on Tuesday.
At a news conference on Tuesday, he said Khartoum would approve
an extension of the AU force, whose mandate expires at the end of
this month.
(Xinhua News Agency September 21, 2006)
