BELGIUM: Sending forces to Darfur refugees, fears for unity on Kosovo and Turkey elections top the agenda of EU Foreign ministers meeting

EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday (July 23) asked the bloc's military staff to start detailed planning for a possible operation to help a U.N. police mission restore security. ''But I would like to underline, the most important thing for us now is to get ready for the deployment of the hybrid force, for the United Nations in Sudan that as you know has already been accepted by President Bashir from Karthoum,'' EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana announced. Military staff will start working on a possible year-long deployment of a 1,500 to 3,000-strong force to be sent at the earliest at the end of October, diplomats said. Eastern Chad and northern Central African Republic have seen a spillover from the 4-year-old conflict in Sudan's western Darfur region, with cross border raids by Sudanese militias and the influx of tens of thousands of refugees. France, a former colonial power in Chad, is expected to provide the bulk of the EU troops. Kouchner said the EU mission should focus on internally displaced Chadians and also help for reconstruction. ''For the moment, we are in the process of building up this force, financial support and all that, but it goes all in the right direction, it has been accepted. Now we need to kick off this decision, it will takes many months, we are trying to shorten this, some European countries have offered to participate. As you know, this hybrid force of 20,000 troops will theoretically have a majority of African troops," French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who had pressed the 27-nation bloc to act, told reporters. Refugees and villagers in the remote areas have also been victims of fighting by local rebel and government troops, as well as bandits who have turned the Chad-Sudan-CAR triangle into one of the most dangerous and desperate regions on earth. Eastern Chad has some 230,000 Sudanese refugees and more than 170,000 of its own citizens have been displaced as a consequence of the conflict, with more than 700,000 others affected by violence, the United Nations says. Kosovo was also on top of the ministers' agenda with fears that a unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo would shatter fragile EU unity on the fate of the Serb province, and urged both Belgrade and Pristina to compromise. ''We would like to give to the negotiations a chance and therefore we are going to see how we can do it, together with our American friends, our Russian friends, to move that process forward and we would like to make an appeal to both Belgrade and Pristina to get engaged on this process that it will not be open ended, that we want to give a chance to these negotiations'' Solana advised. Efforts to clinch a U.N. resolution on its status reached an impasse this month after Russian resistance in the U.N. Security Council, raising the prospect of Kosovo declaring independence without a U.N. mandate. Envoys of the Contact Group on Kosovo -- the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Russia -- are due to meet on Wednesday (July 25) to discuss launching another 120 days of shuttle diplomacy between Belgrade and Pristina to break the deadlock. "They must, our Kosovar friends have to understand they are not alone in the picture or in the problem. First of all, there are also the Serbs, there is Belgrade. And our Serbian friends also have to understand that they have to make some concessions. Each and every wars ended up with peace. And each and every peace had to be negotiated, including the toughest one and we were born, the European Union was born from this understanding and negotiations. And between France and Germany, it has always been the case. So may be Serbs and Kosovars could make a little efforts. And at that point, we will be able to speak about real independence. Of course, we faced that and we even thought that if the Kosovars declared independence on their own, some countries would support them and that has to be avoided. And that's not easy,'' French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said after a meeting of his EU counterparts in Brussels. Finally, more reactions came from ministers following the landslide re-election of Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's Islamist-rooted AK Party. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Paris had a political problem with five of the 35 chapters in the accession talks because they assumed the outcome of membership. But he said France, which prevented talks on economic and monetary policy last month, would not block the negotiating process on other policy areas. ''You are aware of France's position who didn't block the process. And you know very well that there are thirty-seven chapters with five of them being problematic for France. So by the time we open thirty-two chapters, we will have had plenty of time to question it, won't we ? And not only will we have the time to do so, but we are already questioning it. So negotiations are following their due course, that's it, that was President Sarkozy's very clear position when he spoke last about it,'' Kouchner said. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier welcomed the result of elections in Turkey, noting the new government has been elcted with a strong mandate. ''The elections in Turkey were as far as I know free and fair and I think this is a positive sign. What I think now makes the difference, the new government has a strong new mandate to conduct political and economical reforms and also a mandate for a closer integration to the European Union,'' Steinmeier noted. With virtually all votes counted, unofficial results gave the pro-business AKP 46.5 percent, up more than 12 points on 2002, but a more united opposition means it will get 340 out of 550 seats, slightly fewer than now. Eurosceptic ultra-nationalists fared well in the poll, which analysts said would make it harder for the ruling pro-EU AK Party to quickly press ahead with controversial reforms. But the AK Party needs the EU help to keep at bay secular critics who accuse it of using the EU-inspired reforms on civil rights as a screen to boost the role of religion.

ITN Source | July 24, 2007

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