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AU to seek closer ties with Security Council

[Ethiopia] New AU head Alpha Oumar Konare. Anthony Mitchell/IRIN
AU commission head Alpha Oumar Konare.
    NAIROBI

    An African Union (AU) delegation that is due to attend the UN Security Council meeting this week will hold consultations with members of the Council on how to strengthen cooperation between the two organisations, the pan-African body said in a statement.

    The Council will meet in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on Thursday and Friday to discuss conflict resolution in Sudan and the peace process in Somalia.

    The meeting is expected to be attended by representatives of the AU, which is trying to broker a peace deal between Khartoum and insurgents fighting the Sudanese government in Darfur and representatives of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a grouping of east African states spearheading peace talks between the Sudanese government and the south-based rebel group, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army.

    IGAD also facilitated the two-year Somali reconciliation conference in Nairobi that culminated in the formation of a parliament and the election of a president for the strife-torn country last month.

    At a meeting in Addis Ababa on Monday, the AU Peace and Security Council (PSC) requested its delegation to the UN Security Council meeting to "seize the opportunity to undertake consultations with the Security Council members on the ways and means to strengthen and formalize the cooperation between the PSC and the Security Council," a PSC communiqué said.

    Members of the Council left New York for Nairobi on Tuesday, the UN News Service reported, adding that the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Sudan Jan Pronk would also attend the Nairobi session.

    The Nairobi meeting will mark the 11th time in the history of the Council that it has met away from UN Headquarters in New York. Previously, it has met in London, Paris (twice), Geneva, Addis Ababa and Panama City, as well as several venues in New York State, other than the UN headquarters in New York City.

    The 15 members of the Council are expected to travel to Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda and Uganda after the Nairobi meeting, from 20 to 25 November.

    This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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