Sudan's vice president said in an interview broadcast Saturday that it is not "practical" to disarm Arab militias by the end of this month. On July 30, the United Nations Security Council gave Sudan 30 days to quell ethnic violence in the vast western Darfur region or face economic or diplomatic penalties. "We are doing our best to meet that deadline but definitely, due to logistical problems and limitations we have at the moment, I don't think the time frame is practical," Vice President Ali Osman Mohammed Taha told the British Broadcasting Corp., in an interview recorded on Aug. 9. Taha told the BBC that the rebels must also be disarmed. "The government has already started disarming the janjaweed and other militias but we say clearly that we cannot begin to have comprehensive stability without having disarmed both sides," he said. Taha said the presence of 80 African Union observers in Darfur was "acceptable at the moment," but he questioned the need for international troops. "I don't think the presence of international troops in Darfur would help providing security. What we do feel that if international security came to Darfur, that would aggravate the situation rather than pacifying it," he added.
