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French President Nicolas Sarkozy speaks about Sudan

Monday, 25 June 2007

French President Nicolas Sarkozy speaks about Sudan

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who was speaking in Paris, has asked that the world’s nations should be "firm" with regard to Sudan if the country won’t co-operate with efforts to end the problems in Darfur.

President of France Nicolas Sarkozy is reported to have said, "silence was killing" in Sudan, where as many as 200,000 people have died and 2.4m fled the violence since 2003.

Representatives from the US, Europe, China and the Arab League were in attendance at the Paris summit conference, but Sudan and the rebel factions were conspicuous by their absence.

The reason being that the government of Sudan had not been invited to Paris. Also, the African Union (AU) is boycotting the talks because it claims the French conference and initiative is a distraction from its own efforts to resolve the crisis in Darfur.

President Nicolas Sarkozy requested the rapid deployment of thousands of UN peacekeepers to back up and aid the current small AU force currently there in Darfur, and he pledged an additional 10m euros ($13.4m) to the AU.

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