Security Council presses Sudan on UN Darfur force

The Security Council on Tuesday pressed Sudan's reluctant government to let UN military experts into Darfur within a week to plan for a UN peacekeeping force to move into the region later this year.
Sudan barred letting UN troops take over from the smaller and under-equipped African Union force now in Darfur pending a peace agreement, and has given mixed signals since the May 5 signing of a peace deal in the Nigerian capital of Abuja.
The Khartoum government has so far declined to allow the UN military planners in Darfur - as part of a joint mission with AU planners - or give them visas.
But at a meeting on Monday in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, the African Union Peace and Security Council firmly endorsed a transition to a UN Darfur force after September 30.
The AU council, under heavy lobbying from the Sudanese government, had earlier waffled on a changeover. The resolution adopted unanimously by the 15-nation UN council on Tuesday did not spell out the consequences of missing the one-week deadline. But US Ambassador John Bolton said.
"The government of Sudan would find itself in a very difficult position if it didn't cooperate with this transition." The measure endorsed the AU Peace and Security Council's decision and urged Sudan's government and Darfur rebels to work with AU and UN officials "to accelerate transition to a United Nations operation."
The measure also expressed the council's "utmost concern" over the devastating impact on civilians of three years of civil war in Darfur and urged all sides in the conflict to immediately end the fighting and atrocities. It was the African Union's view, the resolution said, that "concrete steps should be taken to effect the transition" from the AU force to a United Nations operation.
The measure said the council now "calls for the deployment of a joint African Union and United Nations technical assessment mission within one week of the adoption of this resolution."
It urged two rebel groups that had not signed the peace accord to do so quickly and threatened "strong and effective measures" such as travel bans and assets freezes against anyone violating or trying to block the agreement's implementation.