Sudan cool on UN peace force plan

The African Union mission is short of funds

Sudan is not ready for a proposed UN peace force in Darfur, its foreign minister has told the BBC.

Lam Akol said no official request had been made and that the money spent sending a UN force would be better used on helping the existing African force.

The African Union (AU) has some 6,000 peacekeepers in Darfur but says they are under funded and may be withdrawn.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said a new force would need air support and sophisticated equipment.

He said rapes and murders were continuing in the region, where a civil war and militia raids have forced some two million people to flee their homes in the past three years.

The UN special representative in Sudan, Jan Pronk, told the Security Council that at least once a month, groups of up to 1,000 militia on horseback kill and terrorise local people.

He said the current peace strategy had failed, and a bigger, stronger force should go to Darfur.

Western request

"Anybody to wants to come has to negotiate with the Sudanese government," Mr Akol told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme.

"The AU force is doing a good job. The only thing they are lacking is money," he said.

"If the UN is serious about doing a good job in Darfur, why not give the money to the AU?"

Earlier, Mr Annan asked Western nations to draw up plans for a rapid reaction force in Darfur.

"We need to get the government to work with us in bringing in an expanded force with troops from outside Africa, because until recently it has maintained that it will only accept African troops," he told reporters.

"But I think we have gone beyond that now."

But US assistant secretary of state in charge of African affairs Jendayi Frazer said the US supports the idea of international troops "augmenting AU forces and not replacing them".

Sudan has accused Western nations, such as the United States, of exaggerating the problems in Darfur for political reasons.

In recent months, AU troops in the region have been attacked by gunmen. It is not clear who was behind these attacks.

One of Darfur's rebel groups, the SLA, said it would prefer US to African forces, who it accused of failing to protect civilians, reports Reuters news agency.

Mr Annan warned that the AU force needed money urgently, because any takeover by the UN would take months.

Peace talks between the government and Darfur rebels have dragged on for many months without ending the conflict.

Pressure

Mr Akol also said that anyone who wanted to end the conflict should put pressure on Darfur rebels to reach a peace deal.

The rebels say the army and pro-government Arab militias are responsible for the continued violence.

The rebels accuse the government of not doing enough for the black African residents of Darfur.

Mr Akol is a former southern rebel, who joined the government last year following a deal to end 21 years of war.

The southerners also complain of discrimination by the Arab elites.