Sudan's failure to approve some non-African units of a UN-African peacekeeping force for Darfur is delaying preparations for its January 1st deployment, the UN has warned.
Edmond Mulet, deputy peacekeeping chief, briefed the Security Council on weekend talks with Sudanese officials aimed at persuading Khartoum to approve a list of troop contributors.
These would includes units from Thailand and Nepal, as well as an engineering unit from Nordic countries. Mr Mulet said there had been some progress on technical issues but that Khartoum had not responded on the Thai, Nepalese and Nordic units.
"This is delaying the putting in place of many of the other assets. This is an answer we need urgently," he said.
On January 1st, the joint UN-African Union force is due to take over from an AU force of just 7,000 that has been unable to stop a conflict that has raged for over four years.
No country has offered the 24 helicopters requested by the United Nations. Without them the peacekeepers will be unable to move around an are about the size of France or defend themselves if they come under attack, UN officials say.