SUDAN: Khartoum issues deadline to AU force

5 September 2006
IRIN News

EL FASHER, 5 Sep 2006 (IRIN) - The Sudanese government has asked the African Union (AU) to decide within a week, whether it will keep its troops in Sudan's Darfur region, or leave the country.

The mandate of the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) is due to expire on 30 September. The Sudanese government has refused to accept an extension of the mandate if the AU force then becomes part of a United Nations peacekeeping force in Darfur.

In a meeting in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa on Monday, the AU Peace and Security Council decided not to extend its mission in Darfur beyond 30 September, unless consultations between the UN and the government of Sudan resulted in a new agreement about a transfer from the AU to a UN force.

"If the Sudanese government and the UN decide on a transition, the AU will review its mandate in Darfur," AU spokesman Noureddine Mezni told IRIN on Tuesday.

Sudanese Presidential Adviser, Mustafa Osman Ismail, told reporters in Khartoum that his government was not against the African troops in Darfur as such, but that it objected to the African troops becoming an advance party for other international forces.

"The African Peace and Security Council pressed ahead with its demand of ending the role of the African Union's troops in Darfur and hand over their mission to the UN without consultation with the government of Sudan," is how the State Minister at Sudan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ali Ahmed Karti, explained Sudan's position on Tuesday.

Despite this one-week deadline set by the Sudanese government, the AU peace council decided to convene at ministerial level in New York on 18 September on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly, to review the situation in Darfur and consider its mandate.

"In the meantime, there will be a lot of consultations with all the stakeholders," AU spokesman Mezni said. "Let us see and wait – and hope we can reach an agreement.

At a press briefing in the Egypt on Tuesday, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan noted his surprise at Khartoum's insistence that the AU force pack up and go at the end of their mandate.

"I understand and I thought that they were going to stay on, but apparently they are going to leave -- which leaves hanging in the air the question of what happens to the internally displaced people," Annan said.

Annan warned that without the AU, the Sudanese government would be responsible for providing security for an existing humanitarian operation helping some three million people.

"The government will have to assume responsibility for [providing security] and if it doesn't succeed, it will have lots of questions to answer to the rest of the world," Annan said.

Last week, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution calling for a gradual transition from the under-funded and under-equipped AU mission, to a stronger UN protection force.

The UN is not expected to be able to deploy a complete peacekeeping operation before the end of the year, one political analyst said, so an extension of the AU's mandate now is crucial to bridge the three-month gap that would allow the UN to prepare its deployment.

The three year conflict in Darfur has left over 200,000 people dead, and displaced more than 2 million. Since the signing of a 5 May Darfur Peace Agreement between the Sudanese government and one of three main rebel groups, fighting has escalated.