In a resolution passed on Friday, the Security Council demanded the Sudanese Government take action within 30 days to disarm Arab militias, known as the Janjaweed, blamed for creating a humanitarian crisis in the western region. If Sudan fails to satisfy the council, the United Nations said it intends to consider economic and diplomatic sanctions.
Sudan has given a mixed response to the resolution and the cabinet met on Sunday to take a formal position.
"The council of ministers condemned the time period and views it to be illogical and difficult to implement, especially since the agreement we reached with the United Nations gave a 90 day implementation period," Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail told reporters after the meeting. "Sudan will commit to implement the agreement that it signed on July 3 with Kofi Annan and will commit to the joint implementation mechanism which was set up to monitor this agreement," the minister added.
The agreement with Mr Annan included a Sudanese Government commitment to disarm the Janjaweed militias and accept human rights monitors in Darfur, where conflict has displaced more than 1 million people.
Mr Ismail said UN and Sudanese officials would meet on Monday. An assistant administrator with the United States Agency for International Development, Roger Winter, said in addition to the 30,000 people who have been killed in the Darfur violence, as many as 50,000 more may have died from hunger and disease.
"That number will start to jet up a good bit over the next few months and then it will start to tail off because a lot of the most vulnerable people ... will have died by then," he said last week in Washington after returning from Sudan.
Sudan says it has already started to crack down on the militias, who have been attacking African villages, looting, raping, burning houses and driving the people off the land.
Villagers have taken refuge in camps in Darfur or across the border in Chad.
By In Solidarity 2 August 04
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