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Khartoum: Sudan has agreed to give the UN-African Union Darfur peacekeeping force freedom of movement and of communications, removing major barriers to deployment of the 26,000-strong force, a mission official said on Saturday.
"This is a very important milestone on the way of [United Nations - African Union Mission in Darfur] Unamid," the political head of the joint mission, Rodolphe Adada, said after he and Sudanese Foreign Minister Deng Alor signed an accord outlining the mission's operating rules.
The two sides spent many weeks negotiating the final draft of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), and reached a deal only after intervention by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Agreement
UN peacekeeping chief Jean Marie Guehenno had said conditions originally set by Sudan, including disabling the force's communications during security operations, had threatened the viability of the mission.
"Unamid shall enjoy ... the right to unrestricted communication by radio ... telephone, electronic mail, facsimile or any other means," read the text of the agreement obtained by Reuters yesterday.
Only 9,000 of the 26,000 troops and police required have so far been deployed to Darfur.
Ethiopia has pledged five of some 24 attack and transport helicopters needed by the mission, but other member states have been reluctant to provide equipment.
Sudan's United Nations ambassador, Abdul Mahmoud Abdul Haleem, said at the signing ceremony there would be no curfew on the force in Darfur. "The document resolved all the differences," he told reporters.
"Unamid ... shall enjoy full and unrestricted freedom of movement without delay throughout Darfur," the accord read.
Sudan had earlier insisted on a ban on night flights by the mission. The force's predecessor, a smaller African Union force, had been subject to a curfew in Darfur's main town and its headquarters, Al Fasher.
Doubts over the composition of the force remain. President Omar Hassan Al Bashir has said he will not accept non-African troops. Scandinavian engineering units withdrew their pledge to the mission after Khartoum refused to accept them, and Thai and Nepalese contingents are under debate.
Alor appeared to depart from this position yesterday when he said Sudan would agree to non-African troops in Unamid - the largest UN-funded peacekeeping operation.
"We have started deploying the African forces and we are committed to deploying non-African forces as we go along in consultation with Unamid," he told reporters. "That does not exclude forces from outside the continent."
Conflict: UN warning
Two top United Nations officials have warned the situation in Sudan's western Darfur region was spinning out of control towards full-scale war.
UN special envoy to Darfur Jan Eliasson told the Security Council the region's disparate rebel groups have made only limited progress in preparing for new peace negotiations and were not yet ready for serious peace talks.
He said latest reports from West Darfur state that Sudanese government aircraft, army and militia had attacked three towns on Friday and showed how "disturbing" the situation had become.
"It looks like a rather large-scale operation," Eliasson told reporters about the attacks. "The situation is running out of control."
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