Sudan Rejects US Proposal on Darfur

AMMAN, 2 December 2006 — Sudan yesterday rejected a US proposal to accept a hybrid international force for Darfur, saying the African Union could do the job.

Sudanese Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Al-Samani Al-Wasiyla met US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on the sidelines of an Arab foreign ministers’ meeting at the Dead Sea resort of Shuneh.

“I asked that we should work together and she said she would work together but only on the condition that we accept a hybrid (force),” Wasiyla said after the meeting. “We know as Africans what we need,” he said.

At the conference, Rice conferred with eight Arab foreign ministers on the latest developments in Palestine, Iraq and Lebanon, official sources said. The meeting involved foreign ministers of Jordan, Egypt and the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

During the meeting, the Arab ministers stressed the need for resolving the Palestinian question which represents the core of the Middle East conflict, extending support to the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and helping the Israelis and the Palestinian to go back to the negotiating table, the sources said.

On Thursday, Rice traveled to the Palestinian territories and Israel where she discussed with Abbas and the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert the possibility of a resumption of peace talks between the two sides.

The foreign ministers also underscored the importance of extending support to the Iraqi government in its drive to accomplish national reconciliation and maintaining security and stability in the country, the sources said.

On Lebanon, the participants expressed support to the Lebanese government in its efforts to build up a national concord and the resumption of dialogue among various groups to avert further deterioration in the country.

They also called for showing due respect to Lebanon’s sovereignty and independence and noninterference in the country’s internal affairs.

The foreign ministers’ meeting was being held on the sidelines of the Forum for the Future meeting that is being attended by foreign ministers of 37 countries, including the G-8.