Secretary-General's press encounter upon arrival in Khartoum
Press events | Kofi Annan, Former Secretary-General
I would also expect to visit Rumbek.. (inaudible)…
I will have a chance to see the UN operation. I want to thank the people for the work they have done and have a chance to see how the take up of the operation is going…..
After I travel both to Darfur and the South I will have a better sense, a first hand impression, of what is going on in the country.
Q: What do you want to discuss with the Government?
SG: Obviously I would want to discuss the question of the negotiations on Darfur. We are all very happy that Naivasha happened; that we got an agreement between the North and South. Now we would want to seen an agreement on Darfur. The negotiations will resume on the 10th of June. The former Secretary-General of the OAU, Salim Ahmed Salim, will be the mediator. I hope the parties will go the in a spirit of compromise and determined to remain in Abuja until they come to satisfactory results.
Q: Mr. Secretary-General are you disappointed that in the last ten months since you were last here that not a lot has changed on the humanitarian front in Darfur and we are seeing another impending crisis with the coming rains?
SG: I think that it is not entirely correct to say that nothing has changed on the humanitarian front. I think before the infrastructure, when we were here last year, we had about 900 people working on the humanitarian issue. Today, we have more than 11,000, almost 12,000. (inaudible)………What we need is a political settlement, security and access to those in need. And, of course, security would help our work considerably.
Q: What about NATO involvement and the European Union? Are they giving enough? Several ex- foreign ministers have asked for actual NATO troops on the ground. Are you asking for troops on the ground?
SG: No. We are not asking NATO to give the African Union troops. What the AU has asked for is logistical support to be able to deploy additional troops. I think that at the conference in Addis Ababa we got some very good offers. We are analyzing the offers to be sure that they are complementary and that they fit the requirements of the African Union.