CAIRO: Egypt s foreign minister on Thursday urged the United Nations not to rush to impose sanctions against Sudan over the Darfur crisis, but to build up dialogue with the hardline Sudanese leader, as well as among the country s rebel factions. The statement by Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit added to voices this week of Russia, China and South Africa who are opposed any new sanctions because Sudan had just agreed to the first significant deployment of UN peacekeepers in Darfur. Britain and the United States said Wednesday they would propose the sanctions after a confidential U.N. report charged that Sudan s government has been flying arms and heavy military equipment into Darfur in violation of Security Council resolutions. The statement by Aboul Gheit appealed on the Council to carefully weigh and not rush into issuing new resolutions that will be hard to implement on the ground, and will complicate the issue more. Aboul Gheit reiterated his earlier comments that the way forward was to initiate talks between Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir s government and rebel groups which did not sign a peace agreement on Darfur last year. The accord, only signed by the government and a major rebel group, failed to end to the bloodletting. Aboul Gheit called on the Security Council s permanent members to build trust and back up contacts and dialogue with the Sudanese government, instead of threatening to impose sanctions. The United Nations and the United States have been pushing Sudan to accept thousands more U.N. troops to build up a combined AU-U.N. force of 20,000. After months of stalling, Al-Bashir recently accepted an agreement to have a UN force of 2,250 soldiers, 750 police, and six helicopter gunships to reinforce the beleaguered 7,000-strong African Union peacekeeping mission already in Darfur. Rhe development could be a sign that international pressure on Al-Bashir was beginning to have an effect. The AU s peacekeepers in Darfur have largely been ineffective in stopping atrocities and re-establishing security, leaving tens of thousands of people in camps, with little food or water. Egypt, which has traditionally good relations with neighboring Sudan, already has a small military force with the AU in Darfur. More than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million displaced in Darfur s four-year conflict, which began when rebels from ethnic African tribes rose up against the Arab-led central government. The government is accused of responding by unleashing the janjaweed militias of Arab nomads, blamed for indiscriminate killing. The government denies those charges.
