KHARTOUM: Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Ismail warned Washington not to spark an Iraq-style crisis over the civil war in Darfur, insisting in comments published Friday that US sanctions threats only aggravated the situation.
Ismail warned "those voices which have drawn the world to the Iraq war not to take it to a new war which it will be difficult to disengage from." In the interview with the independent Al-Rai Al-Aam daily, the minister said US calls for the UN Security Council to consider sanctions only weakened his government's efforts to resolve the crisis and complicated its relationship with the world body.
They also risked "weakening the credibility of agreements recently concluded with the UN Secretary-General (Kofi Annan) and US Secretary of State (Colin Powell)" in which Khartoum undertook to disarm the state-sponsored Arab militias held responsible for much of the suffering in Darfur. Powell said Thursday that Sudan has little time to honor its pledge of immediate action to stop bloodshed in the troubled Darfur region or face the wrath of global sanctions. "We need immediate improvement in the situation, and if we don't see that, then the United States and the international community will have to consider further measures," Powell said at the release of a US Congress-commissioned report on Africa policy.
"Too many lives have already been lost. We cannot lose any more time," he said as US lawmakers stepped up the pressure on the government to act decisively to end what could be the world's worst humanitarian crisis. Powell said the United States had drafted a UN Security Council resolution seeking sanctions on militia leaders behind the violence. He said the draft was being discussed with selected council members.
http://www.arabtimesonline.com/arabtimes/world/view.asp?msgID=2868
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