SANAA, 4 June 2004 — Yemen said yesterday it would send a peacekeeping force to Sudan as part of a United Nations peacekeeping operation after the Khartoum government reaches a final peace deal with southern rebels.
“Yemen will participate in the international peacekeeping force that is expected to be deployed by a UN mandate,” reported the Defense Ministry’s magazine ‘26 September’.
The Yemeni peacekeeping unit will receive training in Indonesia and Greece under UN supervision in preparation for the Sudan mission, said the magazine.
The Khartoum government and southern rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army signed in Naivasha, Kenya, on May 26 tentative peace protocols that call for sharing power and oil revenues.
The government and rebels are scheduled to hold a new round of negotiations in Kenya on June 22 to discuss a final peace deal that could end the African country’s civil war.
Earlier in the week, Yemen said it will join any international force deployed by the United Nations in Iraq, given that the “occupying forces” pull out of Iraq first.
A Yemeni peacekeeping unit is ready for the Iraqi mission and only waiting for a UN resolution requesting the international community to send their troops to Iraq, government sources said. However Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh maintains that his country would not sent troops to Iraq as long as coalition forces are still there.
Asked by reporters on Monday whether Yemen intended to send forces to Iraq, Saleh said, “not before the withdrawal of the occupying forces.” He added, however, that “If our brothers in Iraq asked us, it would be a national duty (to send troops).”
