This article is from the source 'bbc' and was first published or seen on . It will not be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/world/africa/7007728.stm
The article has changed 4 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
Version 0 | Version 1 |
---|---|
Doubts remain over Darfur force | |
(about 4 hours later) | |
Talks on Darfur at the UN have ended with disagreement over the deployment of peacekeepers in the troubled Sudanese region. | |
Sudan insists that there are more than enough African troops to deploy, but UN and African Union leaders said there were still unresolved technical issues. | |
Correspondents say not all African troops meet UN standards. | |
Meanwhile a senior US official hinted at sanctions for rebel leaders refusing to go to October's Libya peace talks. | |
UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon co-chaired the meeting with the chairman of the African Union, Alpha Oumar Konare. | |
They also discussed increasing humanitarian assistance to Darfur. | |
Sudanese objections | |
Participants included the foreign ministers of Sudan, Congo, Egypt, Gabon, France, Ghana and Rwanda, as well as US, UK and EU officials and Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa. | |
More than 26,000 AU and UN troops are due to be deployed to Darfur by early next year in an attempt to bring an end to the four-year conflict. | |
The Sudanese government agreed to this force on the condition that it would be predominantly African. | |
But the BBC's Laura Trevelyan at the UN says that although more than enough African countries have agreed to contribute troops, not all of them meet the UN standards. | |
Attempts to find non-African countries have run into objections from the Sudanese, and to some extent the AU. | |
The Sudanese Foreign Minister, Lam Akol, told reporters there were enough African troops to do the job. | |
The meeting was also set to prepare for peace talks on 27 October between the Sudanese government and rebel groups in the Libyan capital Tripoli. | |
US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte said measures could be taken against rebel leaders who refused to attend. |