But Leonce Ngendakumana, chairman of the opposition FRODEBU party,
criticised the resolution for failing to call for the deployment of
peacekeepers.
Burundi's President Pierre Nkurunziza bids farewell to his South African
counterpart Jacob Zuma (not in the picture) as he departs at the
airport after an Africa Union-sponsored dialogue in an attempt to end
months of violence in the capital Bujumbura, February 27, 2016. Burundi accepts the United Nations security council's resolution to send in police, the foreign affairs minister told Reuters on Saturday, after months of political tension.
The 15-member council unanimously
adopted on Friday a French-drafted resolution asking U.N.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to offer options for a police deployment
to Burundi, where violence threatens to spiral into ethnic conflict.
President Pierre Nkurunziza
said last April he would seek a third term, which his opponents said
was illegal. Since then, at least 439 people have been killed and more
than 250,000 have fled.
"This U.N. resolution is fine for us since it takes into account everything we have been saying," Alain Nyamitwe, Burundi's foreign minister, told Reuters.
"We
have always been open to experts but never to sending of peacekeeping
troops in Burundi," he said, adding "a few" U.N. police could help
stabilise the country.
But Leonce Ngendakumana, chairman of the opposition FRODEBU party, criticised the resolution for failing to call for the deployment of peacekeepers.
"That
U.N. resolution brings nothings to us," he told Reuters. "We don't want
U.N. police but U.N. peacekeepers who would prevent Burundi from
sliding into another civil war."
The opposition
wants the peacekeepers to be deployed to disarm the different armed
groups including the militia allied to the ruling CNDD FDD party, known
as "Imbonerakure", Ngendakumana said.
"We need
forces capable of restoring our army," he said, citing last month's
assassination of a senior army officer and rising cases of desertion by
troops.
Tom Malinowski, the U.S. assistant
secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labour, accused the
government of going back on its commitment to resolve the crisis through
dialogue.
"Denouncing everybody from the Catholic
church, to the media... to foreign countries as enemies of the people
of Burundi is not going to get us to a successful dialogue," Malinowski
told a news conference in Bujumbura.
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