Sudanese gov't responds positively to Annan's message: official

The Sudanese government has responded positively to a message on Darfur sent by outgoing UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to Sudanese President Omer al-Bashir, the official SUNA news agency reported on Sunday.

Al-Sadig al-Magli, director of the peace department in the Sudanese Foreign Ministry, was quoted by SUNA as saying that he delivered Saturday the government's response to visiting special envoy of Annan to Sudan Ahmedou Ould Abdallah.

"We will not disclose the contents of the response before it reaches the UN secretary general," the Sudanese official said, adding, however, that "the response is positive."

Abdallah delivered Annan's message to the Sudanese president on Thursday, which concerned a three-phase plan of UN support for the peacekeeping force of the African Union (AU) in the war-torn western Sudanese region of Darfur.

Annan had proposed that the UN would increase progressively its supports in the first and second phases to the AU force in Darfur until a UN-AU hybrid force is established in the region.

The Sudanese government has announced its agreement on a hybrid UN-AU peacekeeping operation in Darfur with the command of the force remaining in AU's hands and the UN playing a logistic, technical and consultative role.

Source: Xinhua