Egyptian President Rebuffs U.N. Chief On Darfur

By Warren Hoge
Published: March 24, 2007
IHT

CAIRO: President Hosni Mubarak, of Egypt rebuffed a request Saturday from Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to influence Sudan's president to drop his objections to United Nations peacekeepers in Darfur.

At a morning meeting with the Egyptian president here, Ban said he had asked for help in changing the mind of the Sudanese leader, Omar Hassan al-Bashir...to put troops into Darfur...

"The issue is not pressure, the issue is discussions between the government of Sudan and the rebels," said Ahmed Aboul Gheit, the Egyptian foreign minister, who appeared at a news conference with Ban.

"First we have to enlarge the political process," Aboul Gheit said, explaining that the main objective is to get rebel groups that have not signed a peace accord on board.

"As they join," he said, "then we will have the possibility of a settlement. But to talk about pressure, that will not bring us a solution."

...Maged Abdelaziz, the Egyptian ambassador to the United Nations, sought Saturday to counter the impression that Ban had been rebuffed.

"It's not a no," he said.

"We're willing to spend all the effort with the Sudanese to find a solution, but we're trying to gather those factions that are still outside the Abuja peace agreement to encourage them to respond positively."

He said Egypt shared some of the concerns that the Sudanese had about the staged deployments and that Egypt was counseling them to explain themselves better.