 US plays Darfur card again
United Nations, 2008 Oct 29, Press TV
Washington has accused Khartoum of violating an embargo on arms transfers to its Darfur region.
The US ambassador to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad, made the accusation at a meeting of the UN Security Council on Darfur on Tuesday.
Khalilzad said that Sudan 'violated the limited arms embargo on Darfur, used aircraft painted to resemble UN humanitarian aircraft, (and) conducted offensive overflights in Darfur'.
Meanwhile, Sudan's UN Ambassador Abdalmahmoud Abdalhaleem dismissed the allegations, saying that the charge about painting aircraft to look like UN planes had been recycled from a year ago.
The African Union and the United Nations have sent thousands of peacekeepers to the war-torn region of Darfur, but are still far behind assembling the planned 26,000-strong force.
The UN claims up to 300,000 people have died in Darfur and around 2.5 million have been displaced since rebels rose up against Sudan's Arab-dominated government in February 2003. But Khartoum maintains the death toll does not exceed 10,000.
|
