AU extends Darfur troop deployment

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez kisses an unidentified woman during the African Union summit on Sunday in Banjul, Gambia. PHOTO: AFP

African Union (AU) leaders agreed in Gambia on Sunday to extend a peacekeeping force in Darfur until the end of the year to allow the UN to finalize its preparations to deploy in the vast troubled region.

Republic of Congo President Denis Sassou Nguesso, who currently holds the rotating AU presidency, told reporters at the end of a two-day summit that at the request of the UN Secretary General, "the force will surely continue its mission until year end."

The AU had planned to withdraw its force by the end of September citing a financial crunch.

But UN chief Kofi Annan had asked the African leaders at the summit for "flexibility" on their original plan, promising he would raise funding for the force at a donors conference on July 18.

Western powers plan to deploy a NATO-backed UN force to the devastated western region of Darfur, but Sudanese leader Omar al-Beshir has been strongly against it.

Annan said ongoing discussions with Khartoum on the international troop intervention could yield positive results.

"In the world of politics things change, we hear `never,' `forever' and yet it does come around and I still suspect in time there will be a UN peacekeeping force in Darfur," Annan said.

The UN chief said the planning for deployment "is very well advanced ... we do hope still to deploy the troops."

He said al-Beshir had promised to submit to him before the end of this month his "plan for the next six months" on easing the crisis in Darfur.

Annan said he "continues to press for the eventual deployment of UN forces in Darfur," where up to 300,000 people have been killed and 2.4 million displaced by three years of civil war.

Africa's leaders also agreed on Sunday to send troops to Somalia to support regional efforts at calming the chaotic east African state.

The AU called for dialogue between Somalia's weak interim government and powerful Islamic courts, which wrested control of the capital Mogadishu from US-backed warlords early last month.

A resolution adopted unanimously at the meeting said an AU peace and stability mission would deploy in Somalia in the wake of peacekeepers from the east African regional body IGAD (the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development), delegates said.

"We have decided that the African Union, together with regional groups like IGAD, should take the situation in Somalia in hand," Sassou Nguesso told a news conference.

"The African Union will give all its support to the interim government, and we invite the international community to join us in supporting them, while favouring internal dialogue in Somalia," he said.

Somalia's interim government supports the deployment of peacekeepers to the Horn of Africa country, which descended into lawlessness in 1991 when warlords ousted military dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

But the Council of Islamic Courts strongly opposes foreign intervention -- although it distanced itself on Sunday from recent statements by Osama bin Laden that any deployment of foreign troops would be part of a crusade to crush Islamic rule.

The AU says it will not deal directly with the Islamists, who control Mogadishu and a large swathe of central-southern Somalia.

Somalian Foreign Minister Abdullahi Sheekh Ismail said that the resolution unanimously adopted by the heads of state envisaged the prompt deployment of an AU mission, once the IGAD mission was in place.

"It was described as `as urgent as possible,' in the shortest possible time," he said.

The minister, in an apparent change of position from earlier this week, said the interim government was prepared to negotiate with the Islamists.

"We are committed to the date which has been fixed for talks, that is July 15. From there on, we will see what happens," he said.

Washington has ruled out any contact with the Islamists' leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys -- whom the UN has linked to al-Qaeda.

On the first day of their summit on Saturday the African leaders had welcomed two fiery anti-Western critics -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- who castigated Western "bullies" for exploiting the poor.