Spark not Iraq-style crisis over Darfur: Sudan cautions US

By: Mohamed Ali

KHARTOUM, Sudan: Sudan has warned the United States not to create an Iraq-style crisis over the civil war in Darfur, insisting that US sanctions threats only aggravated the situation.

In an interview with the independent Al-Rai Al-Aam daily, Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Ismail warned “those voices which have drawn the world to the Iraq war not to take it to a new war which it will be difficult to disengage from.”

The minister said US calls for the UN Security Council to consider sanctions only weakened his government's efforts to resolve the crisis and complicated its relationship with the world body.

They also risked “weakening the credibility of agreements recently concluded with the UN Secretary General and US Secretary of State” in which Khartoum undertook to disarm the state-sponsored Arab militias held responsible for much of the suffering in Darfur.

More than 10,000 people have died and well over a million been driven from their homes since ethnic minority rebels took up arms in Darfur early last year, in what the United Nations has described as the world's worst current humanitarian crisis.

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