French President Nicolas Sarkozy Monday said that he will preside over a United Nations Security Council meeting dedicated to discussing the issue of "peace and security in Africa" in New York on September 25, 2007.
The president announced this while addressing the opening session of the Conference of French Ambassadors, which began Monday morning at the presidential office.
"In order to mobilize the international community to tackle the problem of peace and security in Africa, I have decided to chair a UN Security Council meeting on September 25, in New York, at the level of heads of state and government," the president said while giving the keynote speech on French foreign policy to the 108 French ambassadors attending the conference.
During his speech, President Sarkozy noted that Africa remained "an essential priority area of our foreign policy and a central element of the European Union policy of cooperation."
Africa, according to him, "is no longer the sick man of the modern-day world" and "it doesn't need our charity." But "in spite of the progress which it has made, Africa is yet to share in world prosperity" and "it is necessary to continue pursuing our aid effort," the president said.
The president expressed his wish to see France "fully involved" in the search for a solution to the Darfur crisis and called for the "rapid deployment" of the joint UN/AU peacekeeping force, which has already received the approval of the UN.
Darfur, a western Sudanese region, has for several years now been suffering from the effects of one of the most terrible conflicts of modern times. According to the UN, about 200,000 people have died from the direct and indirect consequences of the conflict while a further 2 million have been displaced both internally and externally.
In addition, the conflict has assumed a regional dimension as the ethnic groups involved in the conflict are also found in a number of countries neighboring Sudan such as Chad and Central Africa Republic.
Source: Xinhua
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