New York - 'Limited progress' has been made in talks between
Sudan and the European Union in Lisbon on the joint deployment of the
UN-African Union peacekeeping force to Sudan's Darfur, US Ambassador
Zalmay Khalilzad said Thursday.
The meeting under the mediation of Portugal, the current EU chair,
was attended by UN and African officials to try to overcome obstacles
preventing a faster deployment, including a lack of helicopters. UN
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called on governments to make the
aircraft available to bolster the joint peace force.
'There has been limited progress in terms of implementation of the
deployment, but many important issues remained unresolved,' Khalilzad
told reporters, after emerging from a closed-door session of the UN
Security Council where the issues were discussed.
Khalilzad said the Sudanese government cannot pick and choose
which countries contribute troops and aircraft to the peacekeeping
mission. Sudan has rejected US military helicopters, and Khalilzad
confirmed the UN had not directly requested helicopters from the US.
'We strongly support the capability for the deployment, but we
were not asked directly,' he said, implying the US would make
helicopters available if asked.
Ban said no countries have come forward with any helicopters.
'In Europe alone, there are thousands of military helicopters of
different types,' Ban said in a message to the World Summit of Nobel
Peace Prize Laureates gathering in Rome on Friday.
'Large numbers of helicopters also exist in Asia and the
Americas,' he said. 'Any assistance the governments in these regions
can offer would be profoundly appreciated, not least by the people of
Darfur.'
More than 30,000 military and civilian personnel are being
deployed as part of the UN-AU mission, but it is short of
transportation and aircraft. The UN had called for attack helicopters
as part of the mission, but the idea was originally opposed by the
Sudanese government.
The operations to monitor peace agreements to end the ethnic
conflict in Darfur, which since 2003 has killed more than 300,000
people and made more than 2 million refugees.
Ban said capabilities on the ground were still 'dangerously
lacking' for the operations to be effective.
'In the past weeks and months, I have contacted, personally, every
possible contributor of helicopters - in the Americas, in Europe, in
Asia. And yet, not one helicopter has been made available.'
He called on the Nobel Peace Prize laureates to use their
influence to work for peace in Darfur.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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