Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir (right) escorts South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki (left) after a closed-door meeting in the sudanese capital Khartoum yesterday. Mbeki was on a one-day stopover to press the Sudanese government to approve a United Nations takeover of the African Union peacekeeping operation. - REUTERS
KHARTOUM (Reuters):
SUDANESE PRESIDENT Omar Hassan al-Bashir ruled out letting U.N. troops into the Darfur region, saying he would not permit such a deployment as long as he was in power, the state news agency said yesterday.
South African President Thabo Mbeki, who arrived in Khartoum yesterday, is expected to keep up the pressure on Khartoum to approve a U.N. peacekeeping contingent in the western region, where African Union forces have failed to end the conflict.
"President Bashir pledged himself to lead the resistance against any U.N. military intervention if it happened in Darfur," the state news agency SUNA quoted him as saying in a speech to members of Parliament on Monday evening.
"Sudan, the first country in Africa south of the Sahara
to win independence, will not be the first country to be recolonised," the president added.
"He was resolute that there would be no U.N. military intervention in Darfur as long as he is in power," SUNA said.
Mbeki's delegation went straight from the airport to meetings with Bashir and Vice President Salva Kiir, a former southern rebel who took office under a peace deal last year.
