More than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.2 million displaced in Darfur in four years [AP]

George Bush, the US president warned Sudan's president on Wednesday he had one last chance to avoid sanctions by agreeing to the deployment of a full joint UN-African Union force.
 
In London, Tony Blair, the British prime minister, said talks would begin on Thursday on a new UN Security Council resolution to try to end violence in Darfur.
 
"What is happening in Sudan at the moment is unacceptable, is appalling and is a scandal for the international community," Blair said.

John Negroponte, second in command at the US state department, on an African tour, reinforced the message by urging Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan president, to back the deployment of international peacekeepers in Darfur and on the Chad/Central African Republic border.

Sudan agreed on Monday to an interim support package in which 3,000 UN personnel and heavy support equipment would reinforce AU peacekeepers in Darfur, but have refused to accept the larger "hybrid" UN force, of 10,000 more troops, that the Western powers say are needed.

The 5,000 AU peacekeepers have been unable to stem the violence in Darfur, a territory as big as France, where at least 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million made homeless since 2003 in ethnic and political conflict triggered by a rebellion.  

The violence has spilled over to Chad and Central African Republic. 

Lam Akol, the Sudanese foreign minister, said earlier in an interview in Dubai that the US and Britain should help secure UN funds for the AU peacekeepers already on the ground instead of pushing for a larger UN force. 

'Last chance'

Bush warned Sudan's president that he had one "last chance" before the US imposes sanctions and considers other punitive actions.
 
But Bush also said he had decided to give Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, more time to pursue diplomacy with Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the Sudanese president.

 He said al-Bashir must allow deployment of a full joint UN-African Union peacekeeping force to Darfur, end support for Janjawid militias, reach out to rebel leaders and allow humanitarian aid to reach the people of Darfur.
 
"President Bashir should take the last chance by responding to the secretary-general's efforts and to meet the just demands of the international community," Bush said, making clear he would not wait long.
 
Violating agreements
 
Bush accused al-Bashir of routinely violating past agreements. Speaking separately to non-governmental organisations on Wednesday, Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, also voiced scepticism that Sudan would honour agreements over Darfur.

"The fact of the matter is that we need to be prepared for the outcome that we have seen so often with the Sudanese, which is promises that are not met," she said.
 
Outlining the sanctions Sudan would face, Bush said the US treasury department would bar 29 companies owned or controlled by the Sudanese government from the US financial system, making it a crime for American companies to do business with them.
 
Washington would also impose sanctions on individuals responsible for violence.
 
He raised the possibility of an international no-fly zone aimed at preventing Sudan's military aircraft from flying over Darfur and accused the Sudanese of painting military planes white to disguise them as United Nations or African Union aircraft.
 
"I'm also looking at what steps the international community could take to deny Sudan's government the ability to fly its military aircraft over Darfur, and if we don't begin to see signs of good-faith commitments, we will hear calls for even sterner measures."
 
Bush said he would direct Rice to prepare a new UN Security Council resolution that would apply new sanctions against the government, imposing an expanded arms embargo and prohibiting it from conducting any offensive military flights over Darfur.
 
But he said "the situation doesn't have to come to that".

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