By Sue Pleming WASHINGTON, March 13 (Reuters) - The United States and others will consider imposing punitive measures on Sudan for its refusal to allow an international force into the devastated Darfur region, the State Department said on Tuesday.
U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey told reporters Washington was increasingly impatient over what he called Sudan's "delaying tactics" over sending a joint African Union-United Nations force into Darfur.
Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir sent a letter to the United Nations this month arguing in detail against U.N. plans to bolster under-financed AU military monitors.
"To the extent that Sudan continues to frustrate implementation of this agreement, the U.S. and other members of the international community are going to have to think seriously about implementing additional measures to deal with the humanitarian crisis in Darfur," said Casey.
"It is clear our patience is limited," he added.
Casey declined to say what the measures would be but U.S. officials in the past have indicated they could include a range of financial measures against Sudan's government.
Britain said it wanted the Security Council to extend U.N. sanctions against Sudan. "I would put down a resolution on sanctions next week ... that I would expect to get ... adopted," U.N. ambassador, Emyr Jones Parry told reporters.
The sanctions, which the European Union has already advocated, could include broadening a proposed no-fly zone over Darfur to an arms embargo and adding to the list of four people subject to an assets freeze and travel ban.
In his letter, to be discussed at a U.N. council lunch on Thursday with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Bashir said he wanted to restrict U.N. movements in Darfur, limit overflights or attack helicopters and would bar international police from government controlled zones and other areas.
U.N. REPORT
A United Nations human rights mission report accused Sudan's government of orchestrating gross violations in Darfur, a claim Khartoum called invalid.
Sudan said the humanitarian situation had improved, charged the U.N. team's leader with bias and said the mission should not have gone ahead after some members dropped out.
"We therefore strongly and resolutely oppose any consideration by this esteemed council of any report that comes out of this mission," Sudan's Justice Minister Mohamed Ali Elmardi told the 47-state Council in Geneva.
But the report found the government had "manifestly failed to protect the population ... from large-scale international crimes and has itself orchestrated and participated in these crimes."
More than 200,000 people have been killed since 2003 in Darfur in what the United States says is the first genocide of this century. In addition, more than 2.5 million people have been forced from their homes in the violence.
U.S. special envoy to Sudan Andrew Natsios visited Sudan last week and said the government was paralyzing the humanitarian operation in Darfur.
He said he had failed to reach any agreement on allowing non-African peacekeeping troops to assist the cash-strapped AU mission in Darfur, a region about the size of France.
Rwanda, which has about 2,000 troops in Darfur, threatened on Tuesday to withdraw its troops unless more resources were committed to the AU force.
The United Nations has been unable as yet to get enough troops for the joint mission, with most countries reluctant to offer troops without Khartoum's consent.
Source: Reuters