26 October 2004
U.N. Security Council to Hold Session in Africa on Sudan
United States will preside over meeting in Nairobi
By Judy Aita
Washington File United Nations Correspondent
United Nations -- The Security Council has decided to hold a two-day meeting on Sudan in Nairobi, Kenya, on November 18 and 19. It will be only the 11th time that the main U.N. body responsible for peace and security has met away from U.N. headquarters in New York.
The council unanimously adopted a resolution October 26 to hold the session in the Kenyan capital, where peace talks have been taking place to resolve the long-running civil war in southern Sudan. The conflict and humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region of western Sudan also will be on the council's agenda.
The council will discuss the issues with representatives of the African Union (AU), which has a cease-fire monitoring mission in Darfur; the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), which supervises the southern Sudan peace talks; the Government of Sudan; and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM).
U.S. Ambassador John Danforth will preside over the session. The United States will hold the rotating presidency of the 15-nation Security Council during the month of November.
The Nairobi meeting is much more than symbolic, Danforth told journalists after the council vote. "This is a very important step underlying the international concern for and support for the future of Sudan," he said.
"The Security Council would not have agreed to something as extraordinary as this if it were merely symbolism," the U.S. ambassador said. "It serves two purposes. The first is it furthers the peace process in Sudan. And the second is that it's an opportunity for the Security Council to demonstrate to all sides in Sudan that the international community is not going to go away, that the international community is going to continue to be concerned about that country for the long term."
The form and content of the two-day session have not been set yet, Danforth noted, but the presence of the council in Africa provides the opportunity "to paint a picture of the future of Sudan and the future of international participation in Sudan ... when there is a peace agreement."
Danforth said that he hopes the parties in the peace talks have at least "closed the differences very, very substantially," if not reached a peace agreement, by the time the council arrives in Nairobi.
The Security Council meeting "says to the parties that they are on center stage in world affairs and that the Security Council and the world are looking to both sides of the so-called Naivasha process and asking them to be very flexible and to move forward to conclude a peace agreement," the ambassador said.
In its 59-year history, the Security Council also has held meetings in London, Paris, Geneva, Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, Panama City in Panama, and several other venues in New York state other than U.N. headquarters.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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