3 Asian countries may join Darfur force

China, India and Pakistan are considering contributing troops to a peacekeeping force for Sudan's Darfur region , a U.N. diplomat said Saturday, after Sudan accepted the possibility of non-African soldiers in the mission.

The joint African Union-U.N. peacekeeping force will be predominantly African, said Dumisani Kumalo, South Africa's ambassador to the United Nations. But if African countries are unable to muster enough troops, "we will look to other countries to do that as we do in every peacekeeping force," he said.

The U.N. department of peacekeeping operations has said "China, Pakistan, India and others have started looking favorably" at contributing to the force, Kumalo told reporters after a meeting between U.N. Security Council ambassadors and African Union officials.

After months of U.N. and Western pressure, Sudan agreed Tuesday to allow a joint force of up to 19,000 peacekeepers to replace the 7,000-member AU mission now in Darfur. The ill-equipped and underfunded AU force has been unable to stop four years of warfare that have left more than 200,000 dead.

African Union officials assured the U.N. Security Council delegation that Sudan's acceptance of the joint force "was unconditional," said Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. "We will go and talk to the Sudanese government next to hear from them their own perspective on this agreement."

Westerners have been skeptical about any commitment from Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir because he has repeatedly backtracked on promises to move forward on Darfur.

On Wednesday, Akuei Bona Malwal, the deputy head of Sudan's diplomatic mission in Ethiopia, said the force could be in Darfur by October, depending on how quickly the United Nations and African Union are able to get troops and funds.

Malwal said that Sudan wanted Africans to make up the entire mission, but if that was not possible, it would accept contributions from "friendly" countries.

Khalilzad said a group of AU, U.N. and Sudanese officials would work out the details of troop contributions, funding and the timing for the deployment.

Darfur's conflict started in 2003 when local rebels took up arms against the Sudanese government, accusing it of decades of neglect. Sudanese leaders are accused of unleashing the pro-government Arab militia, known as the janjaweed, in response, a charge the government denies.