Jan Eliasson, former UN General Assembly President and UN Secretary General's Special Envoy to Darfur has spoken highly about China's efforts in solving the problems in Darfur, Sudan.

In an interview with People's Daily Online correspondent in Stockholm during the World Water Week which formally opened on Monday, Mr. Eliasson said he appreciated very much working with the special envoy from China (Liu Guijin).

"As a special envoy of the United Nations, I have the privilege of working together with several special envoys from different member states. I appreciate very much working with the special envoy from China, a dear friend of mine, he is extremely knowledgeable about Sudan and also Africa generally. One cannot separate the Darfur issue from general African affairs, particularly the neighboring countries," said Eliasson.

Mr. Eliasson said that they mainly worked in two issues, one was to introduce the UN-African peacekeeping forces to Darfur and the other was the peace process.

"I think China, together with Ambassador Wang in New York and the special envoy Liu in Africa, played an important role in convincing the Sudanese government to accept a larger presence of UN forces. I also know that you have active embassy in Sudan. I think China has a good leverage and good influence on the government of Sudan. So we were happy to see the UN resolution 1769 come about at the end of July 2007. Unfortunately that has taken too long to take the forces in place and I also regret that Norwegian and Swedish engineers who should join the Chinese engineers over there were not allowed to come," reflected Eliasson.

"I believe China will have a good influence on both the Sudanese government and the movements and I think China can play a role in the peace in Darfur and also the stability in Sudan which is very strongly needed for everybody," said ELiasson.

After that China sent hundreds of troops including engineering, security and maintenance teams to Sudan to join the UN peace keeping forces there.

While asking about western negative reports about China's presence in Africa, he thinks it is natural.

"Well it is always difficult to be a major actor, any increasing power who has a presence in Africa will be seen from two perspectives, one is from the perspective of growth and how this country can contribute to the improvement of the conditions of the people of those countries, but also negative to a growing influence which maybe at the cost of either some actors inside the country or at the cost of other actors on the international scene. So I think it is natural."

"But if China continues to put emphasis in improvement of conditions for people, and take into accounts the needs for decent working and living conditions for people in all respects, both in terms of security and development and human rights, then I think you have a very important responsibility. Being a country like China's size and growing influence, you will see more and more that you will be a factor in the discussions and sometimes positive and sometimes even negative, but I think if you have a direction which aims at improvement of life for the people in the countries and show this is done concretely, I think you can feel comfortable. And I hope people in Africa can feel comfortable. I will look forward to continued cooperation with China even if now I am not active in Darfur. "

The Swedish top diplomat is now the chairman of the newly established organization Wateraid in Sweden. He thinks that water can be a catalyst to development, peace and security. He feels that lack of water actually contributed to the conflict in Darfur.

By Xuefei Chen, People's Daily Online, Stockholm.