Brown and Sarkozy 'ready to act on Darfur'
By Peter Allen in Paris
21/07/2007
The Telegraph
Gordon Brown and President Nicolas Sarkozy have made an unprecedented pledge to travel to Sudan together and make every effort to end the suffering in Darfur.
Allies: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy spoke at a press conference in Paris
After meeting the French president in Paris yesterday, Mr Brown called Darfur's civil war "one of the great humanitarian disasters of our generation".
"It is happening even as we speak at this moment. It is incumbent on the whole world to act."
Mr Sarkozy called the war "a catastrophe" and said: "The situation cannot go on like this, it is a matter of urgency. People are dying and people are suffering. It has to stop."
The arid region of Darfur in western Sudan has endured more than four years of fighting between black African rebels and Khartoum's Arab-dominated regime.
At least two million people have fled their homes and some 300,000 have died from violence, starvation and disease.
Britain has drafted a United Nations resolution providing for a peacekeeping force of 20,000 troops and police in Darfur.
This "hybrid force" would be formed jointly by the UN and the African Union, an alliance of all 53 countries on the continent. The Security Council could vote on the resolution next week. If so, the peacekeepers could arrive in strength in Darfur by January.
Mr Brown said: "Once the UN resolution is passed we are prepared to go together to Darfur to make sure that the peace process is moving forward, and to send a message that we will play a part in economic reconstruction."
But Sudan's regime has repeatedly frustrated outside efforts. It vetoed the deployment of a purely UN peacekeeping force and only agreed to the "hybrid force" after months of pressure and prevarication.
Even now, the precise mandate of the force is unclear. Mr Brown said that further sanctions on President Omar al-Bashir's regime would be imposed if necessary.
"Unless action is taken, we will be prepared to consider as individual countries a toughening up of sanctions that will put pressure on the regime to make the changes that are necessary," he said.
The meeting at the Elysée Palace was the first since Mr Sarkozy became president in May and Mr Brown Prime Minister in June.
"On all the subjects we talked about, Gordon Brown and I have the common will to work together, to affirm the ties between Britain and France, and to take initiatives together," said Mr Sarkozy.
In another announcement, the leaders said that they were forming a joint committee to exchange terrorism intelligence.
Terrorism "is one of the great challenges that we'll face, not just for the next few years but for decades ahead," said Mr Brown.
telegraph.co.uk
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