PARIS, June 25: French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged world powers on Monday to take a tough line with Sudan if it refuses to cooperate with international efforts to end bloodshed in Darfur.

“Silence kills,” Sarkozy told ministers from some 20 nations taking part in a one-day meeting in Paris on efforts to ending four years of fighting in Darfur.

“Now we know that the absence of a decision and the absence of a response is unacceptable,” said Sarkozy. “Sudan must know that if it cooperates, we will help it greatly and that if it refuses, we will be firm.” US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the international community had failed to do enough to end the violence that has left at least 200,000 dead and driven more than two million from their homes, according to UN figures.

“I do not think that the international community has really lived up to its responsibilities here,” said Rice on Sunday.

Rice joined representatives from China, Sudan’s top oil customer and arms supplier, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and officials from some 15 other nations including Egypt, Japan and Russia. Neither Sudan nor the rebels were represented at the conference, held after President Omar al-Beshir bowed to months of pressure and agreed to a new peace force for Darfur under the United Nations and the African Union.

The African Union, which has brokered peace talks between Khartoum and Darfur rebels, is also not taking part in the meeting that it sees as duplicating its own efforts.

China’s envoy for Sudan said threats and pressure on Khartoum would be ‘counterproductive’ and argued that world must instead focus on reconstruction aid to alleviate poverty.

“To solve the issue of Darfur, the international community must try to send a positive and balanced signal,” the envoy, Liu Guijin, said on the sidelines of the conference.

“We must not, over any minor shift, threaten and put pressure on the government of Sudan. It would be counterproductive and would only complicate matters further,” said Liu.

But Sarkozy said the international community must also be ‘firm’ toward rebel groups who refuse to enter into peace talks with the Khartoum government.

“I believe that the firmness of the international community is the only way to bring everyone into talks,” said Sarkozy.

Discussion was to focus on plans for the 20,000-strong AU-UN force that will bolster the 7,000 ill-equipped AU soldiers who have failed to stop the violence since their deployment in 2004.—AFP