Khartoum and AU will have little choice but to accept a bigger and more robust UN mission in Darfur

According to a report by the BBC's Jonah Fisher in Khartoum March 9, 2006, Western diplomats are convinced that in the long-term, Khartoum and the AU will have little choice but to accept a bigger and more robust UN mission in Darfur. Also, any UN takeover is likely to take between six and nine months - and the transfer would initially involve little more than a change of hat colour for the soldiers, from green to blue.

The report notes that "having regularly criticised the AU mission throughout its one-and-a-half years in Darfur the Khartoum government has suddenly become its biggest supporter."

Maybe this is all part of the international community's strategy to get Khartoum to agree an expanded mandate for AU troops in Darfur to act as peacekeepers not just truce monitors - while at the same time putting pressure on the Darfur rebels to reach agreement at the peace talks. Khartoum has agreed to consider UN forces when a peace agreement is reached. All along, the Darfur rebels pushed for UN troops in Darfur - another reason why Khartoum is so against a UN force in Darfur. Whatever, a peace agreement will be reached eventually, after which UN peacekeepers will be in Darfur as part of the deal.

Next thing that will happen is trouble flaring up by Sudanese rebels in eastern Sudan who feel as marginalised as those in Darfur, western Sudan. Eastern Sudan is not yet part of any wealth and power sharing deal. And so it is likely to go on, for years.