Annan says still hopes Sudan will accept U.N. force

GENEVA, June 22 (Reuters) UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan today said that he hoped Sudan would soon accept UN peacekeepers in Darfur and called Khartoum's continuing refusal ''incomprehensible.'' Sudan President Omar Hassan al-Bashir told visiting South African President Thabo Mbeki on Tuesday that UN troops were out of the question and suggested a ''colonial'' agenda in demands they be allowed to deploy.

''No-one, and least of all the United Nations, is interested in imposing anything like a colonial rule on one of its member states,'' Annan told journalists.

Some 7,000 African Union soldiers are trying to protect over 2 million refugees in the sprawling western Sudanese region and monitor a faltering ceasefire between rebels, government forces and their Janjaweed militia allies.

Annan said that despite the government refusal, he would not stop trying to convince Khartoum that UN troops were needed for the region, where international relief agencies warn a fresh humanitarian crisis is unfolding.

Tens of thousands have died since violence flared in 2003 when rebels took up arms accusing Khartoum of neglect of the ethnically complex region, with the Janjaweed accused of a campaign of rape and the raising of villages.

The African Union says it is unable to cope and has called for United Nations' involvement.

''I hope that ultimately we will be able to convince them (Khartoum) to accept a UN force,'' Annan said, noting that the UN already had some 10,000 troops in southern Sudan helping preserve peace there.

''They know how we operate and this is why it is so incomprehensible the resistance we are getting,'' he said.

Nevertheless, even if Khartoum did accept UN troops, it would take months to get them on the ground in Darfur, and in the meantime it was necessary to strengthen the African Union operation there, he said.

Next month's donor conference in Brussels must come up with ''more and stronger'' support, Annan said.

In the meantime, the UN was going ahead with preparations to deploy troops, and a final blueprint would be drawn up after an assessment mission reports back next week, he said.

The international community must keep up pressure on those rebels groups that had not accepted a ceasefire in Darfur to do so, Annan said.

REUTERS SB PM1949