China urges efforts to solve Darfur issue

BEIJING—The international community has a common responsibility to push the peace process in Darfur, said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao on Thursday.
Liu told a regular press conference that Liu Guijin, the Chinese government’s special representative for Darfur, had just made a fruitful visit to Sudan. During his visit from Feb. 24 to 27, Liu conferred with leaders and officials from the Sudanese government, and officials from Darfur region. Liu visited Britain from Feb. 21 to 23. Both Britain and Sudan had applauded China’s positive role in the Darfur issue and hoped that China would play a more important role, Liu said.
The resolution of the developing and complicated issue should not only depend on China’s efforts, Liu said. The international community had a responsibility to push the peace process. Liu said the international community should make efforts to persuade the concerned sides in the region join the peace process.
Visiting Chinese government’s special representative for Darfur, Liu Guijin, said Wednesday that the U.S. and Chinese governments had no differences in principle regarding their policies on the Darfur crisis and yet the two states differed in the approach to resolving the issue. “Through my engagement with U.S. officials, through my engagement with previous U.S. president’s special envoys and the new one, the two states in principle have no differences over the Darfur issue,” Liu told a news conference at the Chinese embassy in Khartoum before ending a four-day visit in Sudan.
Liu said he held the first meeting on Monday at the Chinese embassy in Khartoum with new U.S. special envoy to Sudan Richard Williamson, who was coincidentally also visiting this Arab country. It was Williamson’s first visit to Sudan since his appointment last month. “Both the Unites States and China are in favor of a political solution to the Darfur crisis ... both maintain that the dual-track strategy should be applied, ... thirdly both governments thinks that reconstruction and development efforts should follow the deployment of the U.N.-AU hybrid peacekeeping forces in Darfur,” Liu said.
The dual-track strategy, initiated by China, is designed to push forward political negotiations and the peacekeeping mission in Darfur in a balanced manner. Liu, however, said the two nations differ “in the approach,” namely in “how to realize those objectives of our policies.” In the Darfur problem, the two countries diverge in “how to realize the peace and stability, how to seek a quick end to the conflict and stop blood shedding and suffering of the ordinary people,” he explained. “For china, we oppose sanctions and embargoes because we think if others impose sanctions and embargoes against a certain nation, the consequence would be the suffering of the people.—Xinhua