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New York: The United States and Denmark sought on Friday to increase world pressure on Sudan to accept UN peacekeepers in war-torn Darfur, warning that time was running out as Khartoum launched a new offensive there.
The United States and Western nations have been unsuccessful so far in getting the Sudanese government to agree to a UN force in Darfur and invited allies of Sudan such as Egypt, Algeria and Qatar to attend a meeting on Darfur.
"Time is running out. The violence in Darfur is not subsiding, it is getting worse," US. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told ministers and envoys of 27 countries, the African Union, the Arab League and the United Nations.
The meeting, hosted by Denmark's Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller and Rice, was aimed specifically at winning support from countries which have either been silent or backed Sudan's refusal to accept about 20,000 UN peacekeepers.
After the meeting, Rice hinted at stronger action if Sudan will not back down.
"There are other measures at the disposal of the international community should we not be able to get the
agreement of Sudan," Rice told reporters.
Rice said she believed there would be "maximum effort" among those who attended to pressure Sudan to accept a UN force. But some Arab participants were less buoyant and pointed to the need to bolster the African Union.
The African force of some 7,000 troops and monitors has agreed to stay until year's end to help stop atrocities in Darfur but has been unable to halt the violence that has driven 2.5 million people from their homes and left an estimated 200,000 dead since 2003.
The UN Security Council passed a resolution last month that would expand the mission from 7,000 to more than
20,000 troops and give it new authority to protect civilians.
A group of Darfur-born exiles called Rice's efforts a good first step, but it also criticised the United States and
other world powers for doing too little too late to stop a daily tide of killings and rapes in Darfur's ravaged
villages and teeming refugee camps.
Egypt's UN Ambassador Maged Abdul Aziz told reporters that everyone agreed on a UN force - but with the consent of Sudan's government, which has rejected it.
"The issue is not to get the UN force in. The issue here is how to strategise for the next three months while the African Union force is still in place," he said.
And Qatar's UN ambassador, Nassir Abdul Aziz Al Nasser, the only Arab member of the UN Security Council said one had to be careful in putting too much pressure on Sudan as the government was not strong. Insistence on "UN forces would be a big mistake," he said.
A statement issued by the co-chairs of the meeting said the "intolerable suffering of the people of Darfur must stop" and called on Khartoum to allow the "full and rapid deployment" of a UN peacekeeping force to Darfur.
"This is the only responsible action to support the people of the Sudan in the pursuit of a peaceful future," said the statement, which generally expressed the opinions of the group but was not approved formally by all nations.
Meanwhile in London, Britain's British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Friday called for a high-level visits to Khartoum to set out views on a UN force and for world leaders to prepare a summit on the deteriorating situation.
Rice and other speakers said a new military offensive by Sudan made immediate action all the more urgent. Aid workers were unable to get to hundreds of thousands of people.
"People are dying, we need to resolve this now," said Andrew Natsios, the new US special envoy to Sudan.
"We are considering a diplomatic solution and if that does not work out then we will take another approach," he said, without elaborating.
UN human rights monitors on Friday accused Sudan's army of bombing villages in North Darfur, killing and wounding civilians, and forcing hundreds of people to flee their homes.
The rights monitors also reported that sexual violence, which has been a horrific feature of the conflict, continued in South Darfur, particularly near camps for the homeless near the town of Gereida.
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