UNITED NATIONS (AFP) — French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner on Tuesday hailed a resumption of the deployment of an EU peacekeeping force in Chad, a month after it was suspended due to unrest there.
"The EU force they started today, the first plane landed with Swedish special forces," Kouchner said, adding he hoped the deployment would be completed "in the coming days, coming weeks, to the end of the month or the beginning of March."
"This is a huge victory for peacekeepers," he told a press conference, after talks here with UN chief Ban Ki-moon.
The mission aims to deploy some 3,700 troops, including 2,100 French soldiers, in eastern Chad and northeastern Central African Republic to protect some 450,00 refugees who have fled Sudan's stricken Darfur region.
The two men discussed the situation in Chad, as well as Darfur and protecting children caught up in armed conflict.
Deployment of the 14-nation EUFOR mission began in late January but was suspended from February 1 after an allied group of three rebel forces from the troubled east arrived at the gates of the capital on Chad's western border.
The Chadian army drove the rebels hostile to President Idriss Deby Itno out of Ndjamena after a weekend of heavy fighting on the city streets on February 2 and 3, and the attackers have since withdrawn towards southeast Chad.
Kouchner stressed the French troops were in Chad as part of a military cooperation deal and had not intervened in any fighting.
"For the first time in France's history, we have not taken sides in an African struggle," he insisted.
He added he had asked the Chad government for an explanation about the arrests of three Chadian opposition leaders, saying if there were no charges against them then they should be released.
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