QUESTION: Yeah. Kofi Annan says he going to appoint a special coordinator for Darfur. Is this something that he is doing in coordination with you and how do you see this fitting in?

MR. BOUCHER: The Secretary of State and the Secretary General have talked very frequently recently about Darfur over the weekend as they were working the UN -- talking about the UN resolution and the status of that. I think in every one of four or five different conversations they’ve talked about this situation in Darfur. I’m double-checking my notes here. I guess I had three conversations this week. Already, I’m pretty sure Darfur came up in at least two of those. The Secretary and the Secretary General are both very, very concerned about the situation in Darfur. We have, for a long time, have been taking steps to try to ensure access and relief supplies getting into Darfur. We’ve been pushing very hard to try to end the violence there.

We’ve taken a number of steps, I think, reflecting U.S. leadership. We helped broker a cease-fire between the government and the rebels that was concluded in Chad. We followed up with international monitoring through the African Union. That is, I think, the answer is almost underway still. We do have the first team of monitors in Darfur preparing to begin their operations, so our logistical support has been key to that deployment. We’ve been pushing very hard for full humanitarian access. I point out that, again, in the Secretary’s conversations with the Sudanese Government as we went towards the accords that were so -- that were concluded in Kenya just last Saturday -- I think they’re finally second round of signatures -- every -- just about every conversation we had and the Secretary had with the Sudanese Government we pressed on Darfur. They did institute a new 48-hour visa policy and the removal of travel permits for humanitarian workers traveling to Darfur, but there are still some complications, frankly, in how people travel there.

So we are going to continue working on these issues. We’re going to continue pushing very hard with others in the international community on the Government of Sudan to resolve the situation in Darfur, particularly to end the violence by the militias, and, second of all, to allow full humanitarian access. As far as the updates go, we have this issue now before the UN Security Council, with others in New York. We’re considering how the Security Council can address the situation in Darfur and try to make sure the government doesn’t take any steps to support violence or to block the access for humanitarian workers.
We have made clear to the Government of Sudan that we will not normalize relations with Sudan until the situation in Darfur is satisfactorily resolved. Our embassy discusses this situation in Darfur regularly with officials of the Government of Sudan.

The rains have begun in Nyala in southern Darfur. They have not yet affected the humanitarian aid distribution. But they remind us, once again, of how critical it is to resolve this situation urgently, and we have been pushing very hard and working with others in the international community to do so.
We are trying to step up efforts to increase airlift capacity and pre-position food in regional warehouses before the rains begin. As you know, airlift is expensive. We would normally use land access whenever we could. We’ve had difficulties, so we are continuing to airlift supplies. There was another flight that went in yesterday to Darfur. This is the 11th flight that the United States has supported into Darfur. There are three more scheduled to arrive very soon. Since February of 2003, we have provided $118 million in assistance to Darfur and to eastern Chad, the regions that are affected by this crisis, and we will continue to support the efforts as strongly as we can.

QUESTION: So, about the Coordinator. Sorry.

MR. BOUCHER: So, about the Coordinator, yes, we’ve -- we’re coordinating.

QUESTION: You coordinate.

MR. BOUCHER: We are coordinating with the UN and we’ll coordinate with their Coordinator. (Laughter.) It’s -- I thought it was implied as part of our thing, but it was not said explicitly. Sorry.

QUESTION: So Secretary Powell, obviously, supported this idea in talks he had with --

MR. BOUCHER: Yeah, we’re very supportive of everything the United Nations can do, including naming a specific individual who can follow this for them.

QUESTION: Well, what do you think this person is going to be doing?