European commitment to send more African forces to Darfur
Sudan-European Union, Politics, 5/24/2005

The European Union vowed to establish an air bridge to send thousands of the additional African forces to Darfur area in the west of Sudan to help end the continued civil war there since two years.

The higher coordinator of the European policy, Javier Solana, expressed, following the meeting of the EU defense ministers, readiness of the EU to provide more aid for the African Union and equip all its forces and to transfer it to the "site of the incidents."

For his part, Luxemburg defense minister Loic Friden considered in a press conference with Solana that the European Union will work to enhance the African mission in Darfur, but he added this will be made in the course of the complementary efforts for of the UN and NATO.

In this regard, France proposed to transport 1200 soldiers by air in addition to 10 French soldiers to work within the leadership affiliates for the African union.

Officials said that the French soldiers positioned in Senegal and Gabon might be deployed to train the African forces in Sudan.

For its part, Spain said it will donate two air transport operations for the African Union mission and proposed to send a supportive teams to training the forces and contribute to the missions of monitoring in Darfur.

NATO's secretary general De Hope Schiffer attended the EU talks. It is, however, decided that the EU, and NATO will take part in talks to be held in Addis Ababa next Thursday at the support of the UN to agree on the form and volume of the UN mission to the African Union mission.

Earlier this month, the African Union said that it will increase the volume of its force by more than three folds to reach 7700 soldiers by the fall of September this year.

Previous Stories:
  al-Jazeera TV: Sudanese refugees on the Iraqi- Jordanian borders   (5/23/2005)
  Moussa: Justice and Equality Movement in Sudan ready to resume negotiations   (5/19/2005)
  Sudan asks Eritrea to stop support for opposition before normalization   (5/19/2005)
  Sudan's cooperation agreement with the European Union   (1/27/2005)
  European reluctance on genocide accusations in Darfur   (9/11/2004)

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