The United States has formally asked you for an apology for your remarks. Are you prepared to give it to them?

Mark Malloch Brown: I think it's very unfortunate that the remarks were interpreted the way they were, because actually on this issue, both Tony Blair and George Bush have been stoic allies of the strong diplomacy for the Darfur and actually moral consciences in what they have said. And so it's really unfortunate that my comment which was intended much more widely about the whole diplomatic efforts – that's the UN-U.S.-UK-European Union and everyone else, which was we really need to think is it's working and how we recalibrate it to work it better, and my points were the following: first, let the current diplomatic effort is perceived by the Sudanese as too Western – and this is isn't the world, it's just the West who are preaching to them; second, we haven't gotten it right in terms of the carrots-and-sticks, what are the advantages for the Sudanese of making an agreement, and what are the risks to them if they don't; and, third, that there should be a much more private effort – we hear time and time again from Khartoum that when we make ultimatums from outside the country, it grates very badly with the Sudanese leadership. Now it's easier said than done to have private diplomacy with them, because both the U.S. and UK like UN have sent a stream of envoys who have been rebuffed, but somehow, just as Mr. Burrows so clearly trying to do yesterday, we've got to make the Sudanese listen in a sustained way to our case and get the political process going.

Adam Boton: When you say it's too Western, isn't really a politically correct way of apologizing on behalf of a government which has been guilty of genocide, of ethnic cleansing, and of putting people in southern Sudan in grave poverty, sometimes death. I mean, maybe too Western, but surely the values of the human rights of the Sudanese citizens are universal.

Mark Malloch Brown: When I say too Western, this is the language of President Bashir out of Khartoum is try to link to Afghanistan and Iraq and try to cast it in a kind of clash of civilizations which is clearly, completely wrong, and dirty politics. But what we need – and this is what we've been working on very hard is – China along with the African and Arab neighbours of Sudan to join us in a common diplomatic front which says ‘This is a terrible crime against human rights, and all of us think it, not just Tony Blair and George Bush.'

Tony Blair and George Bush are saying absolutely the right thing; we just have for others to say it with them, and say it in a way which kind of overcomes the defensiveness of the Sudanese, and forces them to respond constructively to this. But I want to be clear, there's no apology here, there's no attempt to go soft on the Sudanese. I've been wearing one of these green wristbands which says ‘Not on our watch, Safe Darfur' for several years now, because this really weighs on Kofi Annan and myself, that this is the worst conflict in the world. It goes in and out of public attention and consciousness. We're maybe about entering a new period of increased killings. We are frantically anxious to find a solution to it. And we need the UK and the U.S. , but we have to get others involved as well.

Adam Boton: It's getting clear now. On the ground, as you say this is primarily an African Union military operation. You believe that there should be a commitment of United Nations forces from outside of Africa of what sort of scale?

Mark Malloch Brown: Well, you've heard Mr. Burrows said that the current 7,000-member African Union team was not big enough for a place the size of France – Darfur is. So we've estimated that we need at a minimum 17,000 troops and another 3,000 policemen, but backed by helicopters so that they can all be moved quickly to the scene of any trouble. So a lot of logistical mobility is key to be able to do it, even with 17,000 troops.

Adam Boton: Finally, when we look at the state of United Nations, if we look at your pretty fierce remarks that the direction of Britain and America, one has a sense perhaps, bearing in mind that they are -- that the whole post-war consensus, the point of the United Nations is the feeling that we were effectively the good guys backing up the United Nations is now evaporating.

Mark Malloch Brown: Well, put aside my remarks, because they – on this point, at least, well we've had our differences in Iraq and some other issues, there really isn't a difference on Sudan. We support entirely what Tony Blair is trying to do. But I think to the broader point, you just – there were many weeks after Lebanon, it was kind of U.S.-UN and French and Jordanian and Egyptian and some other country diplomacy which brought that horrible conflict to an end and allowed the beginnings now of a cease which we hope will hold. We've deployed a UN-strengthened force, mainly European troops. And I think, if you look at the total global waterfront, the UN's doing pretty well now, we're recovering the critical consensus amongst powerful member states which was lost after Iraq. I think this is starting again, the sunlight is starting to shine again on UN activities around the world. The UK is very much a part of making that happen.