The United States made a new plea to African nations on Thursday to back the deployment of UN peacekeeping troops in Sudan's Darfur region and sought to ease Sudanese concerns about the make-up of the force.
US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick said the UN force could build on an African Union mission monitoring a shaky cease-fire in Darfur and include more African and Asian troops.
"We don't have time to waste," Zoellick told a news conference in Paris on the sidelines of a meeting to discuss development funding for Sudan. "There are heart-breaking conditions in Darfur and they risk worsening."
African Union ministers are due to decide on Friday whether to ask the United Nations to take control of their 7,000-strong mission in Darfur, where 2 million people have been driven from their homes into camps by rape, killing and looting.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed in Darfur in three years of fighting between government-backed Arab militias and non-Arab rebels.
"This is a situation where we have to be acting now, both to strengthen the African Union forces and also bring together the planning so we can start moving expeditiously on a UN peacekeeping mission," Zoellick said.
Nationalist sentiment in Sudan is running high after a government-led campaign against UN intervention. Thousands of Sudanese protested in Khartoum on Wednesday against any deployment of UN troops in Darfur, shouting "Down, Down USA".
"I know there has been anxiety in some quarters about the nature of a UN force," Zoellick said. "We would envision this building on the African Union force, which we can make stronger, and we believe there can be some other African and Asian components to it."
Sudanese Vice-President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha said on Wednesday Sudan may consider an unspecified UN role if peace talks with rebels being held in the Nigerian capital Abuja yielded a political settlement to the conflict.
Zoellick said action was needed immediately to help people in Darfur but that there could be a link between UN involvement in the region and the Abuja peace talks.
The United States plans to add $500 million to the $1.7 billion it has already pledged during 2005 and 2006 to help develop Sudan, Zoellick said.
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