UNITED NATIONS, June 5 (UPI) -- The top U.N. peacekeeper is leading the world organization's joint assessment team with the African Union to Sudan this week.
The joint mission's objective is to hold wide-ranging discussions with Sudanese leaders aimed at strengthening the AU monitoring force in the country's strife-torn Darfur region and to prepare for its possible transition to a full-fledged U.N. peacekeeping operation.
It was announced Monday that Undersecretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Jean-Marie Guehenno will lead the U.N.-AU team set to hold consultations in the capital of Khartoum.
Then the team will visit Darfur to assess immediate needs for strengthening the current 7,000-strong AU Mission in Sudan, which goes by the acronym AMIS. It will initially be responsible for helping to implement a peace accord there, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in New York Monday.
"The mission will also undertake an assessment of all the requirements for a possible transition" from AMIS to a U.N. force in Darfur, he said.
The accelerated pace of consultations follows the signing a month ago of a peace agreement between the government and the largest rebel faction in Darfur, where three years of fighting among the government, pro-government militias and rebels have resulted in the deaths of more than 200,000 people and displaced about 2 million others amid charges of massacre of civilians, rape and other atrocities.
