The United Nations is optimistic Sudan will stick to an accord on a UN-African Union force for troubled Darfur, a UN spokeswoman said on Wednesday, but some diplomats feared Khartoum had set conditions. After months of negotiations, Sudan accepted on Tuesday a joint UN-AU peacekeeping force of at least 20,000 troops and police.
Khartoum's delegation chief insisted on Wednesday there were no conditions. "We are optimistic and will give the chance to full dialogue with the government of Sudan with complete transparency," Radhia Achouri, UN spokeswoman in Sudan, told reporters in Khartoum.
"We did experience delays based on misunderstandings," she added, describing the prolonged negotiations. "So far we have no reason to believe that the government of Sudan will back off." Sudan has signed several agreements in the past on its western Darfur region - beset by four years of violence - which have not been fully implemented.
Sudan's delegation chief at the negotiations in Ethiopia, Mutrif Siddig, said Khartoum had accepted the proposal, which could include up to 19,555 troops and at least 3,700 police, but added the majority of the personnel should be African.
US Ambassador to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad said he heard Sudan had placed the condition to accept only African forces, which would be unacceptable.
He threatened UN sanctions if such conditions existed, but Siddig said on Wednesday Sudan's acceptance was unconditional. "We are not imposing any conditions for the operation," he told reporters in Khartoum. "It will operate according to the agreed understanding."
Sudan had no objection to non-African troops, he added. Mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms in early 2003 accusing central government of neglecting remote Darfur. Khartoum mobilised militias to quell the revolt. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for a junior cabinet minister and a militia leader for collusion in war crimes.
Sudan does not recognise the court's authority. International experts estimate 200,000 have died in Darfur with 2.5 million driven from their homes. Khartoum says the death toll is 9,000. President Omar Hassan al-Bashir rejected a Security Council resolution authorising UN troops to take over from a struggling 7,000-strong African force in Darfur. The hybrid UN-AU operation is a compromise.
"The character of the mission is an African character," Siddig said. "But if we fall short of meeting the demands from the African countries definitely we will resort to other options." The written AU-UN report says backstopping and command and control structures would be provided by the United Nations. Siddig repeated that overall control would not go to the United Nations, but to the African Union.
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