Letter dated 14 June 2007 from the Permanent Representative 
of the Sudan to the United Nations addressed to the 
Secretary-General


	Guided by its firm conviction regarding the need to avert a proliferation of initiatives and to unify efforts under the United Nations and the African Union, I have the honour to transmit to you the statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the so-called Paris conference on Darfur, proposed to take place on 25 June 2007 (see annex).
	I would be grateful if the present letter and its annex were circulated as a document of the Security Council.


(Signed) Abdalmahmood Aabdalhaleem Mohamad
Permanent Representative
		Annex to the letter dated 14 June 2007 from the Permanent Representative of the Sudan to the United Nations addressed 
to the Secretary-General

[Original: Arabic]

In the name of God the Merciful, the Compassionate


		Statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding the Paris conference on Darfur


	His Excellency Mr. Bernard Kouchner, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the French Republic, visited the Sudan on 10 and 11 June 2007 and met with a number of State officials, chief among them the President of the Republic.
	The visit was fruitful. It focused on discussion of the situation in Darfur and on how to achieve security and stability in all parts of that region.
	The two parties were in agreement on the value of the understandings reached at Addis Ababa and Abuja last November and of the Tripoli consensus of 29 April 2007.
	The Minister for Foreign Affairs of the French Republic invited the Sudanese side to the international conference to be held in Paris on 25 June 2007 to discuss the situation in Darfur. Invitations had already been extended to selected States and organizations such as the African Union, the League of Arab States, the European Union, the Group of Eight, South Africa, China and the United States of America. The Sudan had not been included in that list.
	The Sudanese side informed the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the French Republic that it neither accepted the idea of holding the conference nor the proposed agenda of the conference on the following grounds:
	1.	In the course of its preparations for the conference, France had not contacted or consulted with the Sudan. The question of Darfur concerned the Sudan first and foremost, and no outcome arrived at by the meeting could be of any consequence without the Sudan’s approval and blessing.
	2.	The recent Tripoli meeting of 28 and 29 April 2007 had adopted a document consolidating initiatives and laying out a road map for achieving peace through negotiations aimed at bringing about a political settlement to the problem of Darfur. That had been done under the leadership of the African Union and the United Nations, represented, respectively, by Salim Ahmed Salim and Jan Eliasson, who had recently announced in New York that they would return to the Sudan shortly to present their conclusions on the practical steps needed to define a course of action for the upcoming period that would lead to peace through negotiations between the Government and the factions that had rejected the Abuja Agreement. Any initiative outside of that framework would merely fragment the efforts being made and would not serve the cause of peace in Darfur.
	3.	The conference was being held at a time when the Sudan, the United Nations and the African Union were about to conclude a final agreement on a hybrid peacekeeping operation in Darfur. The new initiative might therefore be seen as reflecting the wish of certain parties to divert attention from the progress being made in addressing the Darfur problem on the political, security and humanitarian levels.
	The Sudan remains the State most eager for a solution to the Darfur problem and for the achievement of peace, security and stability throughout that region. It therefore calls upon the international community and on all States that are committed to peace and justice to redouble their efforts to promote a political solution, pressure those who rejected the Abuja Agreement into joining the peace process, and work with the parties concerned to implement the United Nations support packages for the African peacekeeping forces in Darfur.


12 June 2007









sss1 \* MERGEFORMAT S/2007/365
 

 sss1 \* MERGEFORMAT S/2007/365


FooterJN \* MERGEFORMAT 07-38592  \* MERGEFORMAT 2


 \* MERGEFORMAT 3 FooterJN \* MERGEFORMAT 07-38592


 United Nations
S/2007/365
 
 Security Council
Distr.: General
15 June 2007

Original: English


jobn \* MERGEFORMAT 07-38592 (E)    190607    190607
Barcode \* MERGEFORMAT *0738592*