Abuja, Nigeria – A top U.S. envoy said the African Union would extend its Tuesday midnight deadline for a peace pact aimed at resolving the violence in Sudan’s Darfur region.
Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick said late Tuesday that the African Union planned to announce the extension, as he waded into the long-stymied talks, pressuring the various factions to strike a deal. British Cabinet member Hilary Benn joined him.
“I believe there has to be an end to this process,” Zoellick said.
But as time ticked away, there was no word from the African Union on an extension, and rebels stuck to their demands for concessions on security and power-sharing.
The Sudanese government said it approved a draft of the peace deal to end fighting that has killed at least 180,000 people and left millions homeless. The draft was first circulated last week at the African Union-hosted talks.
“We asked him (Zoellick) to put pressure on the government side so that we can have a balanced paper – and then we can sign it,” said Ahmed Hussein, a spokesman for the Justice and Equality Movement, one of the Darfur rebel factions.
President Bush called Sudan ese President Omar al-Bashir on Monday night about the importance of peace in Darfur, according to the official Sudan Press Agency and Frederick Jones, a spokesman for Bush’s National Security Council.
Bush has described government-backed attacks on civilians in Darfur as genocide.
Zoellick was dispatched to the peace talks after thousands of people rallied over the weekend in the U.S. calling for an end to violence and deprivation in Darfur.
