Ministers support move to relieve famine in Sudan

EU Foreign Ministers yesterday supported an international initiative on southern Sudan to create safe havens for the delivery of international relief. They expressed their concern at Serbia's failure to adhere even to the limited commitments given to the Russians recently on Kosovo.

The Minister of State for Development, Ms Liz O'Donnell, will join a ministerial delegation of the International Group of Aid Donors to Sudan to negotiate access to the famine-hit south with the government. It will later visit Khartoum and other east African capitals to prepare for a major IGAD meeting on Sudan in Addis Ababa in August.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Andrews, said he was happy Sudan was receiving more EU attention. "My aim in placing Sudan on the EU's political agenda has been to ensure that the EU's substantial humanitarian effort is complemented by a political push to secure a permanent peace in that war-torn country," he said.

He believed there were signs that political progress could be made and the EU must give this its full support.

A statement after the meeting called for "full and immediate implementation" of the commitments made by the Federal Yugoslav President, Mr Slobodan Milosevic, after he met President Boris Yeltsin in Moscow on June 16th.

The statement implicitly reflected the EU's frustration with Moscow's perceived unwillingness to increase the pressure on Belgrade by underlining the EU's "strong disappointment" with the commitments made. It says they did not cover the demands issued at the EU's recent Cardiff summit.

It specifically criticised Belgrade's failure to agree to "the withdrawal of security units used for civilian repression," and for not creating conditions for "rapid progress in the political dialogue with the Kosovan Albanian leadership, with international involvement".

The Luxembourg talks coincided with a major operation against Kosovo insurgents by Serbian security forces.

Using armoured cars, they sealed off the town of Belacevac, west of the capital Pristina, apparently preparing to regain control of villages and an opencast mine which supplies power to the province.

The Austrian Foreign Minister, Mr Wolfgang Schussel, feared there was "a further offensive coming up, perhaps the final one . . . I hope I am wrong".

Meanwhile foreign ministers broadly agreed an EU negotiating mandate for talks with the African, Caribbean and Pacific region to replace the Lome Convention which expires in 2000.

Government forces have retaken the Sudanese town of Aqiq, an area that has been in the hands of opposition forces since 1997, President Omar al Beshir said yesterday.