Washington - The United States has held off imposing
bilateral sanctions on Sudan over the conflict in Darfur to give the
United Nations time to negotiate with Khartoum over the deployment of
a peacekeeping force, a senior US official said Wednesday.
The special US envoy for the conflict in Sudan, Andrew Natsios,
said UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon asked the United States to
delay punitive measures and give the current round of negotiations a
chance to succeed.
'As a courtesy to the secretary general, we've agreed to that
delay,' Natsios told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. 'But
there is a finite limit to it. And if we continue to see
stonewalling, then those measures are going to be implemented.'
Natsios said if the negotiations fail to convince Sudan to permit
the deployment of a UN peacekeeping force, the United States will
proceed with travel bans, the freezing of bank accounts and sanctions
against more than two dozen large companies owned by the Sudanese
government.
The United States accuses the Sudanese government of supporting
Janjaweed militias in Darfur, where four years of fighting have left
more than 200,000 people dead and forced more than 2 million people
to flee.
The UN Security Council backed sending a peacekeeping force to
Darfur last year to take over for a beleaguered African Union force
which has been unable to enforce a peace agreement signed in May
2006.
Sudanese President Omar Bashir has refused to accept the force,
leading to a standoff with the Security Council as the fighting in
western Darfur continues. China, which holds veto authority on the
Security Council, has close business ties to Sudan and has been
reluctant to approve UN sanctions.
'The Chinese can be a potentially very important player in
convincing the Sudanese that they need to change their behaviour,' US
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. 'We all know about
the extensive investments that they have made in Sudanese
infrastructure, as well as in their oil sector.'
US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte was to depart
Wednesday on a trip to Africa to pressure Bashir into accepting the
UN force. Bashir has not caved in during previous visits by US
officials, including Natsios, or others from the European Union or
United Nations.
Negroponte's April 11-19 trip also includes stops in Mauritania,
Libya and Chad, which lies on the border with Darfur and has
struggled to accommodate the millions of refugees.
US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Negroponte will
urge the Libyans to also pressure Sudan on the peacekeeping mission
and to discuss what role Tripoli can play to logistically support a
possible UN force.
'Libya's also potentially a place that could help provide some
logistical support for forces that may be deploying into Darfur,'
McCormack said.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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