France to host Darfur meeting on June 25

HEILIGENDAMM, Germany, June 7 (Reuters) Foreign ministers from key countries will discuss Sudan's violent Darfur region in France later this month in a fresh initiative to resolve the crisis, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said today.

Speaking on the sidelines of a Group of Eight meeting in Germany, Sarkozy said major power leaders wanted to move quickly to end the conflict that has created a humanitarian crisis.

''Everyone agreed that we have to act because it is an absolute scandal,'' he told reporters. ''Everyone agreed on the need for a political solution and to push the Sudanese leaders to accept that.'' Looking to speed up the peace process, Sarkozy said foreign ministers from an ''enlarged contact group'', including the United States, neighbouring Egypt and Sudan ally China, would hold talks in Paris on June 25.

''All the problems of Darfur will be discussed, because I don't see how you can have a political solution without talking about the humanitarian problems, the military problems and the security problems,'' Sarkozy said.

Sarkozy took office last month and has made the Darfur crisis a priority for his new government, dispatching his foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, to Sudan later this week to find ways of easing the situation.

International experts estimate that more than four years of fighting between government-linked militias and rebel groups in Darfur, a vast region which is the size of France, has killed 200,000 people and left more than 2 million homeless.

Sudan puts the death toll at about 9,000.

Sarkozy said the United Nations and the African Union should move quickly to deploy a long-awaited peacekeeping force to the region.

The UN and African Union reached a tentative agreement yesterday on a 23,000-strong force by glossing over a dispute on who will control the operation.

There are concerns that Khartoum will drag its feet on the deployment and the United States and Britain are both considering sanctions following US unilateral penalties toward Sudan.

Kouchner is currently in Mali and will then travel to Chad, which has seen the Darfur violence spill over its borders. He is due in Sudan on June 10 and 11.

Reuters SYU DB2241