UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said Sunday he is working on extending the presence of the poorly-equipped African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur until the end of the year as he plans to deploy a UN force.
Annan said he had asked at a summit here for flexibility from AU leaders, who have insisted on pulling out their ill-financed troops by the end of September.
Annan said he had "substantive" talks on the sidelines of the Banjul African Union summit with Sudanese President Omar el Beshir, who has consistently been fiercely opposed to an international intervention force. "I of course continued to press for the eventual deployment of UN forces in Darfur... (and) we agree the dialogue will continue," Annan told a news conference. He said el Beshir promised to submit to him before end of July his "plan for the next six months" on easing the crisis in Darfur.
"We intend to work with the AU force to strengthen the AU force and we are going to have a pledging conference in Brussels on the 18th of July ... to seek additional support .. so they can continue to do their work effectively until such time as a UN force is deployed," he said.
The AU had wanted to pull out in September because it has run out of funds to finance the operation. The 53 African leaders gathered here are expected to make a decision at the end of their summit later Sunday on the conflict in Darfur where a three-year civil war has claimed 300,000 lives.
The United Nations is conducting the largest humanitarian operation in the world in Darfur, an area roughly the size of France where up to 300,000 people have been killed and 2.4 million displaced by three years of civil war.
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