The African Union on Friday extended its mission in Darfur until Sept. 30 to buy time to break an impasse over the transfer of peacekeeping duties in Sudan's vast west to U.N. forces, Reuters reported. "The (African Union Peace and Security) Council decided to extend the mandate of AMIS until Sept. 30, 2006," Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin said of the African Mission in Sudan. The pan-African group was under intense international pressure to turn over Darfur peacekeeping to the United Nations but Sudan said any such action would spell the end of AU-mediated peace talks on Darfur. The EU and United States say African Union troops have failed to stop the killings in the region, where a three-year-old conflict has displaced more than 2 million people and created a major humanitarian crisis, Reuters added. Sudan says an international presence would only worsen the conflict and result in the turmoil seen in Iraq and Afghanistan. --More 22 53 Local Time 19 53 GMT
