UN force for Darfur must have clear mandate - Kiir

AFP report May 30, 2006 - excerpt:

Amid criticism of Khartoum for failing to agree to the deployment of UN peacekeepers in Darfur to replace the under-manned African Union mission, Kiir said there had been "a misunderstanding".

"We did not refuse the UN force to come to Darfur," he said. "But they must come with a clear mandate."

He said the matter had been raised with UN troubleshooter Lakhdar Brahimi when he visited Sudan last week.

"Let us now have the dialogue... until UN forces will be prepared to take over from the African Union," he said.

Kiir said "the procedure they (the UN) took was rather wrong," referring to the fact the UN Security Council passed a resolution backing the Darfur mission that could be enforced militarily.

But President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, chief of the northern National Congress Party (NCP), said he had a different opinion, Reuters reported (Sudan ruling parties differ over UN Darfur force May 30, 2006 Opheera McDoom):

"We heard the words of Salva Kiir, and his opinion is different to mine," he told reporters late on Monday night. He declined to answer a question on why he opposed UN transition in Darfur.