UN Council to go ahead with meeting on Darfur

United Nations, Aug 25 (UNI) The Security Council is due to meet on Monday to discuss the deteriorating situation in Sudan's strife-torn Darfur region, despite a request from Khartoum to postpone it, the Council's President Nana Effah-Apenteng , has said.

Mr Apentang from Ghana, which holds the council presidentship for August, told reporters yesterday at UN headquarters in New York that the 15-member powerful body considers the situation in Darfur to be grave enough for a meeting.

He also acknowledged receiving a letter from President Omar Bashir of Sudan seeking postponement of Monday's meeting "to enable better preparations." "All its legislative, parliamentary and executive institutions at every level, including the Government of National Unity, have adopted a unanimous resolution categorically rejecting the process of transfer" wrote Mr Bashir in a separate letter to the Council.

The President added that Council members would continue discussing a draft resolution circulated by Britain that outlines the size and scope of a possible UN peacekeeping operation.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters that Khartoum's opposition to a force of blue helmets in Darfur remains the key issue before individual UN member states determine whether they are willing to contribute troops to such a force.

Thousands of people have died and more than 2 million have been shunted out of their homes because of violence in Darfur since 2003.

The Sudanese government, to suppress a rebellion by non-Arabs, supplied arms to Arab fighters, who have reportedly indulged in atrocities.

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