CAIRO: Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit said Friday the United Nations and Sudan must continue to cooperate even if it means sending a new envoy to Khartoum to replace the one expelled from there. In my view, the UN ... will send another envoy so that cooperation continues with the Sudanese government, he said, stressing the need not to allow a worsening of relations between the UN and Sudan. UN special envoy Jan Pronk, 66, was ordered out of Sudan on the weekend after reporting on his personal weblog that the Sudanese army had suffered major losses in fighting against rebels in Darfur. Hani Raslan, Sudanese affairs expert at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, told The Daily Star Egypt that the Sudanese government rejected Security Council Resolution 1706 calling for UN-led forces to stabilize the area on the grounds that it doesn't offer political solutions to the conflict. Instead, the resolution paves the way to international intervention in Sudanese affairs in issues unrelated to the conflict, undermining the government's sovereignty in the process, he adds. As a result, Egypt is attempting to find a middle ground, Raslan explained, in trying to bring the Sudanese government closer to the UNSC resolution by stipulating that Khartoum must first approve the deployment of international forces. Nabil Abdel-Fatah, from Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, told The Daily Star Egypt that Egypt's mediating role in Sudan was an attempt to actually reduce the role of the international community in the war-torn country and was also an attempt to save face for the incumbent Sudanese government. Abdel-Fatah claims that Egypt s role in Sudan has regressed in light of the increased interest of the US, UK and EU in the troubled African nation. "The mediation is an attempt by Egypt to re-align and reduce the international role in Sudan. It is Egypt s wish to replace the UN multi-national force in Sudan with a pan-African one. So strong is Egypt s desire in this respect that it is contributing 17,000 soldiers, he said. He also added that the international community had reduced Egypt s regional role to dealings with Hamas and the PLO and that by exerting itself in Sudan, it was trying to rectify and broaden its diplomatic status as peace-broker.
