Sudan dismisses Blair threats, welcomes UN mission
Source: Reuters
(Adds U.N. comment on problems delivering aid, paragraphs 8-9) By Alaa Shahine KHARTOUM, Dec 14 (Reuters) - Sudan on Thursday dismissed British Prime Minister Tony Blair's threats of sanctions and a "no-fly zone" over Darfur, and said it welcomed the visit of a U.N. mission as long as it reflected reality. Blair's spokesman quoted him as saying during a visit to Washington last week that the option of a no-fly zone in Darfur should be considered as part of sanctions against Sudan if it did not agree to a U.N. peace plan. "Statements like this ... do not enhance peace," said Al-Samani Al-Wasiyla, the Sudanese minister of state for foreign relations. "They prolong the crisis," he told Reuters. The United States is also growing frustrated with Sudan's refusal to accept an international force in Darfur, and U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said that, while diplomacy was the focus, other options were being explored. Sudan has rejected a U.N. Security Council resolution authorising the deployment of 22,500 U.N. troops and police in Darfur, where experts say around 200,000 people have been killed since the conflict flared in 2003 when rebels took up arms against the government, accusing it of neglect. The United Nations says 4 million people in the region rely on humanitarian aid to survive, but that increasing violence and banditry are stopping aid getting through. Manuel Aranda da Silva, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Sudan, said in Geneva that in November relief agencies had managed to get aid to only 62 percent of those who needed it. Sudan says Western media have invented and exaggerated the crisis in Darfur and only 9,000 people have died there. GOOD FAITH The violence prompted the 47-state U.N. Human Rights Council to agree on Wednesday to send a high-level mission to Darfur to investigate allegations of worsening abuses against civilians. "We have never closed our door in the face of any committee, as long as it wants to help us," said Al-Wasiyla. "We will deal with it and want it to reflect what it sees on the ground. People talk about the situation in Darfur and they forget that most areas in Darfur are calm ... that the aftermath of war cannot be solved within 24 hours." Rights group, rebels and a former rebel group that signed a peace deal with the government say Khartoum has armed a proxy militia accused of war crimes in Darfur. The government denies supporting the militias, locally known as the Janjaweed. The militias have been accused of triggering deadly clashes in El Fasher, the main town in Darfur, last week that killed at least six people. Pekka Haavisto, the European Union special envoy to Sudan, said he had complained about the Janjaweed activities in El Fasher to the government on Thursday. "The government response was: they are not Janjaweed, we are not calling them Janjaweed, because they are government border guards," he said. "And my response was that if you recognise (them) as being part of the government, you have even more responsibility for their behaviour." There was no comment from the government, but state-run media have referred to one of the groups involved in the clashes as the "Border Intelligence Forces".
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