U.N. Undersecretary-General for Peacekeeping Jean-Marie Guehenno and Andrew Natsios, the U.S. special envoy for Sudan, both agreed recent multilateral talks with the Sudanese government and rebel groups were moving the country towards an end to the conflict which has killed at least 200,000 people and displaced another two million.

Despite the apparent progress, both agreed that major changes in leadership set to occur in six weeks could dramatically affect the process.

The United States and the United Nations will undergo significant changes in leadership in the coming weeks as new leaders come into office. In the United States, a new Democratically-controlled Congress will be sworn into office on Jan. 1.

Stopping the violence in Sudan has been bipartisan, but what demands a Democratic majority may place on the negotiations are unknown, said Natsios.

"I am clear now where we are but on Jan. 1 there will be a new Congress and they will be making policy decisions and that may change," Natsios said

Similarly, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan will leave the world body after nine years in office on Jan. 1. His successor, Ban Ki-Moon of South Korea, is likely to bring in new staff that may shuffle U.N. objectives in negotiations with Sudan.

Both changes in leadership will come at a time when the African Union says the mandate for its 7,000-strong peacekeeping force will expire with the new year, which would mean the exit of the only foreign peacekeeping force in the region.

All of these changes boil down to the negotiators having the six weeks until the new year to solidify positive changes, Natsios said.

"For three different reasons we need to understand that we are on a very tight timeline," he said. "Decisions have to be made. Agreements have to be reached."

Finding peace in Darfur has been a difficult task for negotiators. The standing African Union force expanded from a handful of observers in the area in 2003, but experts say the force is under-funded and under-staffed to control the violence. The Darfur Peace Agreement, a negotiated cease-fire signed this past May, never truly got off the ground and hostilities continued.

Natsios said that difficult negotiations are to be expected in a country with as many ethnic groups and conflicting interests as Sudan.

"Essentially we are not going to have one breakthrough moment when everything comes together on every single issue," Natsios said. "What we're having happen now is a series of steps are being taken where there is forward motion."

Both the United Nations and the United States are under pressure to resolve the crisis in Darfur. For the United States, a September 2004 speech by then Secretary of State Colin Powell describing the bloodshed as genocide created a moral and legal obligation to stop the fighting.

For the United Nations, an effective end to the crisis could prove its utility in resolving international crises, an ability which was sorely questioned with the launch of the Iraq War despite the lack of approval from the body or Annan.

All countries, however, should be concerned about their standing if they fail to deal with a genocide which will enter its fourth year in February, according to Gayle Smith, a former senior director for African Affairs with the National Security Council.

"If the United Nation's prestige is affected by this it will be the fault of the entire Security Council," Smith, a senior fellow with the Center for American Progress, told United Press International. "It's the entire world's prestige at stake."

Critics say conflicts of interest have hamstrung international action in Darfur.

Asked whether members of the Security Council such as China, which has companies heavily invested in Sudanese oil, were protecting Sudan from harsher action, Guehenno said that peace in Darfur was good for business in the long term.

"China which wants a stable Africa which has growing economic interest in Africa is seeing that an Africa that is destroyed by conflict will be bad for the African it will be bad for the economic partners of Africa," Guehenno said.

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