UN-AU joint team starts talks with Sudanese government

A joint assessment team sent by the United Nations and the African Union (AU) to Sudan started on Saturday talks here with the Sudanese government on transferring the peacekeeping mission in Sudan's western region of Darfur from the AU to the UN.

The joint team, co-chaired by UN Undersecretary General of Peacekeeping Operation Jean Marie Guehenno and AU Peace and Security Commissioner Said Djinnit, held a meeting with Sudanese Foreign Minister Lam Akol in the presence of senior officials of the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) and the AU Mission in Sudan (AMIS).

Djinnit told reporters after the meeting that the UN was keen to support the implementation of the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA), reached between the Sudanese government and a main Darfur rebel faction on May 5, just as what it had done for supporting the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between northern and southern Sudan.

He disclosed that the participants in the meeting discussed the ways of reinforcing the AU's role in Darfur and the mechanism for a possible transition of the peacekeeping mission there to the UN.

Djinnit, on his part, reiterated the AU's concern over the realization of peace in Sudan in terms that Sudan was one of the important quarters in Africa.

The Sudanese foreign minister said that the visit of the UN-AU joint assessment team in Sudan came within the framework of completing the consultation and dialogue between Sudan and the UN which were launched when UN Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi visited the country two weeks before.

He added that the talks were focused on the role which the world body could play to support the peace process in Darfur.

Jamal Mohammed Ibrahim, Spokesman of the Sudanese Foreign Ministry, reaffirmed his government's stand calling for a reinforcement of the AU forces in Darfur rather than a UN takeover of the peacekeeping mission.

"There is no objection to a UN participation in the AU's role," the spokesman said, adding that any role of the UN should coincide with the DPA which did not contain in its items the UN's peacekeeping operation in Darfur.

The joint assessment team, which was formed according to a UN Security Council resolution adopted on May 16 and was let in by the Sudanese government after a Security Council delegation's talks in Khartoum on Tuesday after it arrived in the Sudanese capital last Friday.

During the two-week visit, the team will evaluate how to reinforce the 7800-strong AU forces in Darfur in the next months and prepare for a possible transition of the peacekeeping mission from the AU to the UN.

Besides having meetings with Sudanese officials in Khartoum, the assessment team will also visit Darfur to inspect the situation there.

Source: Xinhua