Thank you for the opportunity, Mr. Chair.
It's wonderful to have you both. It's an honour to have a Canadian at the table as well. Thank you for coming.
Mr. Deng, I appreciate that you're from Sudan. You understand about the north-south peace talks that took place, which culminated in peace in Sudan in 2005. I'm very interested in this; when we have a region that is in this kind of situation, it seems to me that we often target so that it's the west intervening in that one country. It might be a United Nations mission or something else. To me, though, what I've always seen in my time in Africa is that the region should be a very important player.
In the south, with the comprehensive peace agreement, for instance, IGAD played a huge role in that--in getting Mr. Bashir to back off and other things. It seems to me that if we look at something like the Congo, is there a place in your thinking for, if we do practice the will to intervene, or W2I, and move in...? Because there's increasing suspicion in many ways.The south wants to work with the south and is afraid to have the north intervene.
Are there ways in which, let's say in the Congo, there are opportunities to work with the regional base that's there, that could apply pressure on the combatants or the diverse groups there to bring it to pass?
Do you see this as something that should be part of W2I?