Sudan has agreed to allow an African Union-U.N. assessment mission into the country ahead of a possible deployment of UN troops to enforce a peace deal in war-torn Darfur, a UN diplomat said this evening.
Speaking after a meeting with Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the UN's Lakhdar Brahimi said: "We agreed that in the coming days the United Nations and the African Union will send a joint assessment mission to Sudan."
The Sudanese government and the main Darfur rebel faction signed their peace agreement on May 5th. Two other factions refused to sign saying it did not meet their basic demands.
Prior to the deal, Sudan had rejected a UN takeover from ill-equipped African Union (AU) forces in Darfur, but has since said it would negotiate with the world body over the mandate and size of a possible force in the western region.
Mr Brahimi said the mission, including military experts, would start work in Khartoum and then go to Darfur where he said it would assess the immediate needs of the AU force.
It "would also undertake an assessment of all the requirements for a possible transition from the AU to the UN", he told reporters in Khartoum.
The United States welcomed Khartoum's decision as a step along the path to having a U.N. mission there.
"You have to have the assessment team on the ground as a precondition, really, to have an expanded force there and eventually a UN peacekeeping force. So, yes, we view this as a positive step," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.
Sudan's agreement missed a deadline of Tuesday night set by the UN Security Council to allow the mission to begin work. But given Sudan's previous outright rejection of a UN force, Mr Brahimi said this was a "positive first step".
In New York, UN chief spokesman Stephane Dujarric said no date had yet been set for the assessment mission's departure.
The African Union earlier this month urged the government to cooperate with the United Nations and help the AU transfer its peacekeeping mission in Darfur to UN troops.