Sudan rejects Rice demands on Darfur force

DEAD SEA, Jordan, Dec 1 (Reuters) US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice strongly urged Sudan on Friday to accept a ''hybrid'' international force for Darfur but was told the African Union could do the job, a senior Sudanese official said.

Sudanese minister of state for foreign affairs al-Samani al-Wasiyla met Rice on the sidelines of a conference at the Dead Sea in Jordan to promote democracy and development in the West Asua.

''I asked that we should work together and she said she would work together but only on the condition that we accept a hybrid (force),'' Wasiyla told Reuters after the meeting.

''We know as Africans what we need.'' The United States and its allies have been pushing hard for a United Nations force to go into Sudan's troubled western Darfur region and finally offered a joint UN-African Union (AU) force which Sudan initially appeared to accept but later rejected.

A US official travelling with Rice said Washington's top diplomat ''was very direct'' in the meeting about the need for Sudan to accept a hybrid force.

''The secretary said we are all in favour of broadening the peace but the issue here is the protection of civilians,'' the official, who declined to be identified, said.

''We are obviously worried about a humanitarian catastrophe. We need to protect against that.'' The African Union on Thursday extended the mandate of its under-funded peacekeeping force in Darfur for six months.

The authorisation of about 7,000 AU troops in the vast desert region had been due to expire at the end of the year.

Experts estimate that 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million uprooted in nearly four years by the violence, which the US government has labelled genocide.

''PEACE SPIRIT'' Wasiyla said a hybrid force would complicate issues on the ground. Sudan was prepared to accept UN technical help in Darfur but not troops, he added.

''We want to give it (the peacekeeping role) to the African Union. They have the experience,'' Wasiyla said.

He also urged the United States to improve relations with Sudan, which he said would send a positive message and encourage a ''peace spirit''.

''Anger will not solve the problem,'' Wasiyla said.

Washington's special envoy to Sudan, Andrew Natsios, last month set a deadline of January 1 for Khartoum to make progress on Darfur or have the United States and others resort to what he called ''Plan B.'' Warning that time was running out, Natsios declined to say what Plan B comprised, but he made clear Khartoum must accept a joint UN/African Union force in Darfur by January 1 or a tougher line would be taken against Sudan's government.

The United States has notably held back on threatening more punitive measures against Sudan in the hope it will allow international troops into Darfur.

But a forced military intervention is very remote and any punitive measures after January 1 would probably be economic or diplomatic in nature.

REUTERS PDM BD1748