The Sudanese government has not yet given the green light for an assessment team to prepare for a United Nations peacekeeping force in its strife-torn Darfur region and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is sending two high- level officials to Khartoum, the capital, for intensified talks next week, a UN spokesman said Friday.

With the clock ticking down to a deadline imposed by the Security Council for the deployment of such a team, spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Annan's special envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, and Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Hedi Annabi were expected to begin talks in Khartoum on Tuesday or Wednesday.

"They will discuss what role the UN will play in Darfur in the implementation of the peace agreement and they're part of our preparation for the proposed transition," Dujarric said of plans for a UN force to take over from the current undermanned African Union (AU) mission following a peace agreement earlier this month between the government and Darfur's main rebel group.

"We're very much aware of the timeframe imposed by the Security Council as is the Sudanese government and we're trying to move things along as quickly as possible," he added, referring to last Tuesday's resolution calling for deployment of a joint African Union-UN assessment team within one week to prepare for a UN peacekeeping operation.

Annan has already written to Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmed al-Bashir seeking his support for a stronger UN force to replace the 7,000-member AU mission (AMIS) deployed in Darfur, where fighting between the government, tribal militias and rebels has killed scores of thousands of people and uprooted 2 million more in the last three years.

He has not spoken to al-Bashir, but in the last few days conferred by phone with Vice President Ali Osman Taha and a special adviser to the president. Contacts were also going on with the Sudanese mission at the UN headquarters in New York.

"The secretary-general's message is clear: there is not a moment to lose both on the humanitarian front, on the funding," Dujarric said, adding that it was essential that in the meantime the international community support the under-funded and understaffed AMIS.

Source: Xinhua