Bush pushes Sudan on UN troops, ships food aid

WASHINGTON, May 8 (Reuters) President George W Bush urged Sudan today to live up to its pledge to allow UN peacekeepers into Darfur and said he was shipping emergency food to ease a humanitarian crisis in the African country.

Bush called Sudan President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who he has previously accused of aiding genocide in Darfur, to press him to allow UN troops, and some from NATO, to take over from an African peacekeeping mission in double the numbers.

After mixed messages from his government on the mission, Bashir told Bush he would consider the request seriously but did not commit to permitting up to 14,000 troops to enter the area, the senior White House official for Africa, Cindy Courville, told reporters.

Bush's moves came after the government and rebels reached a U.S.-brokered peace accord on Friday and followed huge rallies this month in Washington, backed by his conservative support base, urging pressure on Sudan to end the violence.

The Bush administration originally requested 300 million dollars in humanitarian assistance for Darfur in its budget. Then it added 225 million dollars in a supplemental bill, which is snarled in Congress as senators try to add spending to it that Bush considers unnecessary.

Bush urged lawmakers to give the bill swift passage to provide relief for Darfur -- an area the size of France in western Sudan where three years of fighting have killed tens of thousands of people and forced 2 million from their homes.

''I hope Congress will act swiftly on this true emergency,'' Bush said.

US WANTS UN ACTION Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will address the UN Security Council tomorrow to request a resolution to accelerate deployment of UN peacekeepers in Darfur.

A draft resolution circulated by the United States among Security Council members welcomed the peace agreement and stressed ''the importance of full and rapid implementation'' of the deal.

That agreement raised hopes Khartoum might now consider a U.N. deployment because Sudan had said in the past it would only do so after a peace deal with Darfur rebels.

Officials said he had also ordered the shipment of 2,800 tonnes of non-cereal commodities from an emergency stockpile, and diverted five U.S. ships originally en route to Dubai, which will now head to Sudan with another 40,000 tonnes of cereal commodities.

''These actions will allow the World Food Program to restore full food rations to the people of Darfur this summer,'' Bush said.

Reuters PDS VP0120