Annan insists Sudan agreed to UN troops

GENEVA, Nov 21 (Reuters) United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan insisted today that Sudan had agreed to the deployment of U.N.

troops in Darfur, although a couple of issues remained to be resolved.

''The Sudanese accepted but said they needed to consult on the size of the force,'' he told journalists, pointing to one of the outstanding questions.

Another was whether the commander of the new force should be appointed solely by the African Union (AU), which has troops in Darfur, or in conjunction with the UN.

Annan, who announced last Thursday in Addis Ababa that Sudan agreed in principle to UN troops, said he expected an answer from Khartoum on the outstanding issues ''by today or latest tomorrow .'' A proposal needed to be put to the AU's Peace and Security Committee at a meeting set for November 24, he said.

Sudanese officials, who in the past have accused the UN of trying to ''colonise'' Sudan, say there is no agreement as yet for a UN force, which Annan and others say is the only way to halt the bloodshed in the west of Sudan.

The AU has some 7,000 peace monitors in the Darfur region, which is the size of France, but under-funded and under-staffed they have failed to stop the killing. The AU's mandate expires at the end of the year.

''The agreement that I reached with the Sudanese I think could be described as a turning point,'' said Annan, who leaves office on December 31. ''So I am quite hopeful.'' He said it was witnessed by officials from the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, the African Union and representatives of several African countries.

''For the first time we were all in one room and agreed a three-phased approach,'' he said about the meeting held at the AU's headquarters in the Ethiopian capital.

The 1 billion dollar-a-year UN plan calls for 17,000 soldiers, most to be supplied by Africa, and 3,000 police.

REUTERS SP KP2145