Darfur meeting ends with renewed support for peace effort (Roundup)

Jun 25, 2007, 16:31 GMT

Paris - A meeting in Paris aimed at hastening a political resolution to the Darfur crisis ended Monday with participants agreeing to redouble efforts to deploy a peacekeeping force in the troubled region in western Sudan.

At a press conference following the four-hour conference, the host, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, said the meeting had revealed 'glimmers of hope' and suggested that another conference on Darfur would take place in September, this time with the participation of the African Union.

No African nation was represented at Monday's meeting. The government in Khartoum refused to attend, complaining that it had not been consulted.

In addition to Kouchner, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and representatives from China, Russia, Japan and Germany took part in the meeting.

Rice again criticized Sudan's leaders, charging they were not respecting previous agreements.

'There is a history of backtracking,' Rice said. 'We lost a lot of time. Agreements have been made and not met. There must be consequences if (the government of Sudan) does not live up to its promises.'

Rice also said that the humanitarian situation in Darfur 'will deteriorate if there is no security.' Since January, an additional 150,000 people have been forced to leave the region because of the continuing violence.

Participants at the meeting want to deploy a peacekeeping force composed of 20,000 UN and African Union soldiers.

Ban said he was optimistic that Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir would permit the deployment of the troops. 'He wrote me a letter saying that he would do it soon,' Ban said. 'I believe him, but now he must show that he means it.'

Ban also called on the Darfur rebels and the Sudanese government to sit down again for negotiations to end the civil war, which has killed more than 200,000 people and displaced another 2 million.