Khartoum indicated yesterday it may be ready to accept UN peacekeepers taking over from African Union (AU) troops in Darfur following a peace deal between the government and the main rebel movement.
"The government will assess whether or not it will need the assistance of foreign troops and it may decide to ask for a UN deployment," foreign ministry spokesman Jamal Ibrahim said.
"But such a decision is the prerogative of the government ... What is sure is that no foreign forces will come to Sudan without the consent of the government."
Although the spokesman stopped short of saying that Khartoum would request a deployment of UN troops in place of the existing AU force, his statement marked a softening of the government's position.
Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir has spoken out strongly aagainst any UN deployment in Darfur, insisting that the peacekeeping mission should be carried out by Africans not outsiders.
"We are strongly opposed to any foreign intervention in Sudan and Darfur will be a graveyard for any foreign troops venturing to enter," the president said as recently as February in response to US-led calls for a UN force to take over.
But in recent days, a number of government officials have raised the possibility of a UN deployment within the framework of a peace accord with the rebels, prompting a strong welcome from Washington.
"We view this as a very encouraging sign, the first positive outcome from the Abuja peace agreement," US ambassador to the UN John Bolton said on Saturday.
Ahead of Friday's signing ceremony in Abuja, North Darfur Governor Osman Yussef Kibir had said the government might approve a UN force to oversee implementation of a peace deal.
"We believe that the deployment of UN forces in Darfur after a peace accord is concluded can serve as a guarantee to implementation of the accord," Kibir told reporters last week.
An audio tape of al-Qaeda supremo Osama bin Laden broadcast by al-Jazeera television two weeks ago called for a holy war against the West in Darfur, in allusion to the US-led calls for a NATO-backed UN force.
"I call upon the mujahidin [holy warriors] and their supporters in Sudan and its surroundings -- including the Arabian Peninsula -- to prepare to lead a prolonged war against the crusader robbers in western Sudan," Bin Laden said in the recording, which US officials later said they regarded as genuine.
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
Three sisters from Ohio who inherited a dime kept in a bank vault for more than 40 years knew it had some value, but they had no idea just how much until just a few years ago. The extraordinarily rare coin, struck by the US Mint in San Francisco in 1975, could bring more than US$500,000, said Ian Russell, president of GreatCollections, which specializes in currency and is handling an online auction that ends next month. What makes the dime depicting former US president Franklin D. Roosevelt so valuable is a missing “S” mint mark for San Francisco, one of just two
RSS