Chad may consider U.N. police to protect Darfur refugees

CNN March 1, 2007.

N’DJAMENA, Chad (AP) — Chad’s government is voicing opposition to a U.N. plan to deploy troops along its border with Sudan to protect tens of thousands of people who have sought refuge there from the conflict in neighboring Darfur.

The U.N. Security Council is considering sending up to 10,000 troops to Chad, largely because Sudan’s government has resisted efforts to send U.N. peacekeepers to the Darfur region itself.

The goal of the mission would be to protect refugees and aid workers, and monitor borders to reduce cross-border attacks.

Djidda Moussa Outman, Chad’s minister of foreign affairs, said late Wednesday that Chad had never accepted the idea of a military force of “whatever nature” on its eastern border.

“It was more a question of deploying a civil force made up of police and gendarmes with the aim of protecting the camps of Sudanese refugees, the displaced persons and humanitarian workers in the region,” Outman told diplomats representing Security Council members in the Chadian capital, N’djamena.

By “displaced persons,” he was referring to the many Chadians who have fled their homes because of an insurgency in the region.

Rebels bent on toppling Chadian President Idriss Deby have clashed sporadically with the government since 2005. They have been able to exploit volatility in Sudan to establish rear bases in Darfur.

Deby expressed concerns about the deployment of a U.N. military force during the Security Council’s closed consultations on the issue this week, diplomats at the U.N. said.

Deby is worried about inflaming tensions with Sudan. The two countries have strained relations because Chad supports the Darfur rebellion against the Sudanese government, and Sudan strongly backs the Chadian rebels based in Darfur.

Of the 2.5 million people who have fled Darfur, 230,000 have ended up in refugee camps inside Chad. There are also 90,000 internally displaced Chadians living in camps close to the border.

More than 200,000 people have died since ethnic African tribesmen in Darfur took up arms four years ago, complaining of discrimination by the Arab-dominated Sudanese government.

The U.N. blames the Sudanese government’s counterinsurgency for the bulk of the atrocities. Khartoum denies the allegations.

Iran, Sudan close ranks in face of Western pressure

CNN March 1, 2007.

KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) — Leaders of two nations faced with strong international pressure — Iran for its nuclear program and Sudan because of the conflict in Darfur — closed ranks as Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir and visiting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran gushed in support of one another.

“Enemies try by force to prevent Sudan from emerging powerful in the region, as they do in Iran’s case,” Ahmadinejad declared on Wednesday after arriving in Khartoum.

The Persian nation’s president said Iran considers “progress, dignity and power of Sudan” as important as its own, and “extends ideological support” to the country, Iran’s state IRNA news agency reported.

“There is no limit to the expansion of relations with Sudan,” said Ahmadinejad, announcing a “new chapter” in oil, energy, industry and agriculture sectors between the two countries.

Meanwhile, Sudan’s President al-Bashir said Iran was within its “absolute right” to pursue a nuclear program — which is condemned by the U.N. Security Council and the United States, worried that Tehran is using it to mask efforts to create nuclear weapons.

“Attempts by some countries that possess lethal nuclear weapons to frustrate Iran’s right in using nuclear energy for peaceful purposes reflect double standards that dominate the international scene,” al-Bashir said.

Those same countries “turn a blind eye on Israel’s nuclear arsenal and are incapable of forcing it to relinquish its arms so that the Middle East could be a nuclear-free zone,” al-Bashir added. Israel, which is believed to possess nuclear weapons of its own but has never publicly acknowledged it, considers a nuclear armed Iran as the greatest threat to its existence.

Ahmadinejad’s visit to Sudan comes a day after the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor accused a junior member of al-Bashir’s Cabinet of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.

During his two-day visit, Ahmadinejad will deliver a lecture at a private institution in Khartoum and witness the signing of several bilateral agreements, according to Sudan’s Information Ministry.

Sudanese state SUNA news agency said the visit would promote “cooperation in defense relations, the exchange of expertise and scientific and technological capabilities.”

Iranian ambassador in Khartoum, Ridha Amiri, said the trade volume between the two countries is expected to jump from $43 million to about $70 million.

During Ahmadinejad’s visit, Sudanese defense minister, Gen. Abdul Rahim Hussein said that “both Sudan and Iran are being subjected to similar international challenges, particularly from the Untied States in its attempt to rearrange the Middle East.”

For his part, Ahmadinejad said “foreign presence” — shorthand for U.S. troops — is the root cause of problems in Iraq. “Today, continued occupation has added to insecurity and problems in Iraq,” he said, and urged the “occupiers of the country” to revise their policies.

Ahmadinejad said that preserving the “legal government, territorial integrity and national unity in Iraq is the key to resolving the country’s problems.”

The U.S. has accused Iran of helping support Shiite militants in Iraq, but Ahmadinejad hurled accusations back on Wednesday, saying the “occupiers” want to prevent Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds and other ethnic groups in Iraq from living peacefully together.

High expectations set for NK talks

Source: CNN.

SEOUL, South Korea (Reuters) — North Korea is fully prepared to shut down its nuclear facilities and allow inspections, a South Korean official said in New York, where envoys from Pyongyang and Washington are set to begin rare talks on improving ties.

North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan has been on a visit to the United States since Thursday, becoming the highest-ranking official to do so since 2000.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt about the North’s readiness to execute the initial steps,” South Korean envoy Chun Yung-woo was quoted as saying in New York, referring to measures Pyongyang has agreed to on shutting down its nuclear activities.

“The North has agreed to the initial steps and has the intention to fully do its part,” Chun was quoted as saying by South Korean media after he met Kim at a hotel on Saturday.

Chun, South Korea’s chief nuclear negotiator, is accompanying Foreign Minister Song Ming-soon’s visit to the United States.

In Beijing, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte said he hoped Pyongyang would not delay in fulfilling its commitments but declined to comment further.

“I would be reluctant to give you an assessment as to whether they have begun activity leading to the shutdown or not,” he told a news conference.

Highest-level meeting in U.S. since 2000

Kim is scheduled to meet U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill on Monday to discuss improving ties.

It will be the highest-level meeting on U.S. soil since a top military officer and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s special envoy, Jo Myong Rok, visited Washington in 2000.

That was followed by U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s visit to Pyongyang and eased tensions — until George W. Bush took office in 2001 and labeled North Korea as part of an “axis of evil”.

In a breakthrough February 13 agreement in Beijing, North Korea agreed with South Korea, the United States, and three other countries to shut down within 60 days its nuclear facilities and allow inspectors in return for 50,000 tons of fuel oil.

Further steps to completely “disable” its nuclear weapons program will entitle the energy-strapped state to another 950,000 tons of oil or other forms of aid of equivalent value.

North Korea is also set to hold similar discussions with Japan in Hanoi next week, and separate meetings on energy aid are planned among the six countries in the international talks, which include China, Russia and Japan.

Negroponte said that the working group on denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, one of five working groups to be set up under the February 13 agreement, would begin its work imminently.

“It’s a matter of days, not weeks,” he said of the group, which will be chaired by China.

On March 13, International Atomic Energy Agency director Mohamed ElBaradei will be in Pyongyang to discuss the mechanics of North Korea’s deal to close down its nuclear program and readmit inspectors from the U.N. watchdog.