Saturday, June 24, 2006

Annan plans to see Sudan president on Darfur force

By Evelyn Leopold

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Friday he would try again to persuade Sudan's president to accept a U.N. peacekeeping force in Darfur when they meet at an African Union summit in Gambia next week.

President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said on Tuesday that U.N. troops were out of the question, suggested there was a "colonial" agenda behind such demands and accused Jewish organizations of pushing for their deployment.

Annan said he had spoken to Bashir by telephone and received the same negative response given to Jean-Marie Guehenno, the head of U.N. peacekeeping, on the need for a force in Sudan's arid western region where at least 200,000 people have died from fighting, hunger and disease and 2.3 million have been uprooted. Read more >>>

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