The Sudanese government hailed on Wednesday an announcement made by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to appoint a commission to find whether acts of genocide have occurred in Darfur.  

"This would silence the accusations made by Washington against the Sudanese government," Foreign Minister Mustafa Othman Ismail said in a statement to the press.

"We believe that both the Security Council and the UN secretary general want a highly professional and neutral committee," said Ismail.

In his speech to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, Annan told world leaders that regardless of the findings of the international commission, "things are happening there which much shock the conscience of every human being."

He urged all possible support for the African Union monitoring force that will be expanded to help end the 19-month conflict in Darfur.

"Let no one imagine that this affair concerns Africans alone. The victims are human beings, whose human rights must be sacred to all of us. We all have a duty to do whatever we can to rescue them, and do it now," Annan said.

(Xinhua News Agency September 23, 2004)