Cairo to host Arab mini-summit on Darfur

CAIRO: The leaders of Sudan, Egypt and Libya are to take part in an Arab mini-summit on the Darfur conflict to be held in Cairo around March 20, President Hosni Mubarak said Friday. Mubarak, quoted in government newspapers, said the meeting would be held a week before the Arab summit due to take place on March 28-29 in Khartoum, or around March 20. Sudan s President Omar Al-Beshir and Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi would take part alongside Mubarak. The conflict in the Darfur region of western Sudan should be handled in an African context but has become complicated because of foreign intervention and the desires of certain parties, Mubarak said, without giving names. Mubarak said his country would not be sending troops to Darfur because Egypt only sends troops outside its borders within the framework of UN peacekeeping missions. In Addis Ababa on Friday, the cash-strapped African Union began considering whether to hand over peacekeeping operations in Darfur to the United Nations amid warnings of continued genocide. Sudan has rejected the plan, arguing the handover risks worsening the Darfur conflict between rebels and militias backed by government troops that has killed some 300,000 people and displaced two million others since 2003. AFP