Chad-Sudan border peacekeeping force - AU chair and Libyan leader Col Gaddafi follow up on Tripoli mini-summit

On 24 February 2006 Angola Press says Libya's leader Col Gaddafi and Sudan's President al-Bashir discuss Darfur crisis.

Next day, Angola Press says Col Gaddafi and the African Union Chairman Congolese President, Denis Sassou Nguesso, held a telephone conversation late Thursday to follow up on outcome of African mini-summit held 8 February 2006 in Tripoli, Libya. Excerpt:

That summit ended with the signing of a peace agreement between Khartoum and N'djamena.

The telephone discussion between the two leaders is part of the permanent consultation process begun by both of them, a Libyan official source indicated here.

The African mini-summit for the appeasement of tension between Khartoum and N'djamena, sponsored by the Libyan leader, called on Chad and Sudan to ban immediately the presence on their territories of armed groups hostile to governments in either country.

In the "Tripoli Declaration" published at the end of the summit, delegates to the mini summit also called on both parties to abstain from interfering in their respective internal affairs and supporting armed groups active in either country.

The mini-summit further urged N'djamena and Khartoum to stop immediately their media campaign, as they constitute an obstacle to the restoration of peace and confidence between the two countries.

It also decided to deploy on the ground as a fact-finding mission as well as a peace and security keeping force to be pre- positioned at the border between Chad and Sudan.

Aside from Sassou Nguesso and Kadhafi, Presidents Hassan Al-Bachir of Sudan, Idriss Deby of Chad, Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso, François Bozize of the Central African Republic and AU Commission chairperson, Alpha Oumar Konare, also attended the summit.

The leaders agreed to set up of a ministerial follow-up committee to hold regular meetings in order to assess the situation and support efforts by both countries in the quest of peaceful and negotiated solutions to the root causes of their conflict.

Sudan, Chad, Congo, Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic and the CEN-SAD general secretariat headed by Burkina Faso are members of the committee which will work in coordination with the AU Peace and Security Council, chaired by the office of the Libyan leader.