Sudan's president wants to restrict UN movements in Darfur, limiting overflights or attack helicopters and barring international police from government controlled zones and other areas.
The UN on Monday distributed a translation of a 14-page annex to a letter from President Omar Hassan al-Bashir that arrived last Thursday. This document refuted in detail UN plans to bolster under-financed African Union (AU) military monitors under an interim plan, known as a "heavy package."
"The letter is very disappointing," said the British UN Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry. "It's a major setback, and is tantamount to a requirement for a renegotiation of some of the points in the heavy package."
Bashir was responding to a Jan. 24 letter from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, which spelled out plans for an interim package of some UN 3,000 personnel, mainly engineers, logistics and medical units as well as helicopter pilots.
That group would plan for a larger AU-UN operation of more than 22,000 troops and police.
But the Sudanese leader made clear that until the interim arrangement was in place he would not discuss the larger troop deployment. The move dashed hopes that UN peacekeepers could be deployed soon in Darfur, where at least 200,000 people have died, 4 million need emergency aid and 2.5 million are in makeshift camps.
Bashir's position also has thrown any UN planning in disarray since no country is willing to shoot its way into Darfur without Khartoum's consent.
The Sudanese president based his objections on the Darfur Peace Agreement of last May between the Khartoum government and one rebel group, barely touching on a much more recent agreement he endorsed last November.
The release of the translation of Bashir's letter came on the same day that a UN Human Rights Council mission to Darfur accused the Sudanese government of organizing and taking part in human-rights crimes.
The report urged the implementation of all resolutions from the Security Council and the AU "including those relating to travel bans and the freezing of funds, assets, and economic resources of those who commit violations."
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