The top UN envoy to Sudan on Wednesday said he was confident of achieving a peace agreement on the conflict-ridden Darfur region this year -- provided that troops and money are available.
Troops on the ground must be dramatically boosted from the approximately 2,500 African Union soldiers there now to some 6,000 to 8,000, Jan Pronk said, adding that European financial and logistic support would also be needed.
He spoke after a meeting with French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier, a day after a donors' conference on Sudan in Oslo, Norway. Barnier said a total of US$4 billion had been pledged at the conference for this year through to 2007. France pledged US$720 million.
Peace in Sudan is "essential" for the international community, Barnier told reporters after meeting with Pronk. He added, however, that without stability there could be no "durable and valid peace."
Both men insisted on the need to increase troops monitoring the situation on the ground.
"I'm quite confident that, with security on the ground in Darfur, with the help of African Union troops and political talks to be resumed this month or next month in Abuja between the government and rebels, [this] can lead to a comprehensive peace agreement on Darfur this year," Pronk said. "It's an objective that I think is possible."
Pronk described the current situation as "crucial" because of recent forward movement to help resolve the conflict, such as the donor's conference and the creation of the International Criminal Court to prosecute suspects involved in the violence.
The Sudanese government has rejected handing suspects to the court, and several hundred Sudanese students staged a sit-in on Wednesday in front of the French embassy to protest Paris' support for a UN resolution demanding trials of war-crimes suspects.
The sit-in was organized by the Khartoum State Students Union, which is dominated by pro-government Islamists.
Barnier stressed that any court action was not aimed at Sudan, but at individuals.
"We won't resolve the question of Darfur without Sudan or against Sudan," Barnier said.
"For the peace, stability of Sudan, nothing can happen without Sudan," he said.
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