The United States will consider establishing a no-fly zone over Darfur if Sudan does not comply with the terms of cease-fire agreements, President Bush said in Holocaust commemoration remarks. Bush, who toured the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Darfur exhibit Wednesday before his address, said he was giving diplomats a “short time” to persuade Sudan’s government to allow in more peacekeepers and end attacks on civilians by government-allied militias. If that does not happen, the president said, he would expand sanctions against Sudan to include 29 companies and “by blocking any of its dollar transactions within the U.S. financial system.” The latter measure has severely limited economic activity in recent years for North Korea, Iran and the Palestinian Authority. Bush said he also would push the U.N. Security Council to “prohibit Sudan’s government from conducting any offensive military flights over Darfur.” U.S. and allied forces have enforced such no-fly zones in the past. The Holocaust museum has taken the lead in activism on behalf of Darfur, where government-allied militias have killed hundreds of thousands of civilians and displaced millions.
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