| Sudan on Wednesday told the United Nations to channel through one spokesman all comments on the war-wracked region of Darfur to avoid presenting a "bad image" of the situation there. Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail told journalists that if this did not happen, Khartoum might have to reconsider commitments it had made to the UN. Ismail said his government had agreed with Secretary General Kofi Annan that his special envoy Jan Pronk would be the official UN spokesman. He pointed out that Annan's spokesman Fred Eckhard spoke of new incidents of violence on Tuesday in Darfur, alleging the government had launched helicopter raids while pro-government Janjaweed militiamen continued attacks on displaced persons. At the same time the refugee agency, UNHCR, issued a statement expressing its worry about alleged pressures being put by the government on displaced people to return to their villages in the absence of security there, Ismail said. He called upon the UN to control its statements as agreed "if it really wants security to prevail in Darfur, otherwise the government will reconsider its commitments." |