EL FASHER (Sudan), Sept 5: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited the Darfur region of western Sudan on Wednesday, promising to step up pressure for a political solution to the conflict.

Ban told journalists he would push for progress in peace talks between the Sudanese government and rebel groups, while laying the ground for deployment of a 26,000-strong “hybrid” force of UN and African Union peacekeepers.

“I am really going to step up this political negotiation process,” Ban said just before arriving in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state.

“The hybrid troop process should be accompanied by a political process. Otherwise our peacekeepers or police or civilian workers will have a lot of difficulty in carrying out their roles,” he said.

He added there had been some progress in organising peace talks with Darfur’s splintered rebel groups. “As far as the political negotiation process and coordination, we are coming close to agreeing on a venue and a date.”

Ban met officials from the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS), the force that will be replaced by the hybrid troops when they arrive. They said they briefed him on serious under-funding of the mission, adding that while the official strength of the African force in Darfur was 7,000, there were currently 5,915 troops on the ground.The secretary-general was handed a petition by a small group claiming to represent people displaced by the conflict, calling for Ban to support a government-backed policy to encourage displaced Darfuris to return to their villages.

Most displaced groups in Darfur have opposed this policy, saying continued hostilities would make returning too hazardous.

International experts estimate some 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been driven from their homes during the past 4-1/2 years of fighting in Darfur.

Sudan puts the death toll from the conflict, which flared when rebel groups took up arms against the government charging it with neglect, at 9,000.

Ban was greeted at the airport by officials and a small group of women carrying banners urging rebel groups who refuse to sign up to last year’s Darfur Peace Agreement to attend the coming negotiations.

These are widely expected to be held in October.

A senior UN official travelling with Ban said there had been progress in finalising arrangements to fly a sick Darfur rebel out of Sudan to receive medical treatment in Kenya.

Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir gave Ban a pledge on Monday that the rebel official, Suleiman Jamous, would be able to leave effective house arrest as soon as arrangements could be made. “He has a new passport and we are in the process of getting him a Kenyan visa,” the official said.

Jamous, the Sudan Liberation Army’s humanitarian coordinator, was the main link between Darfur insurgents and the world’s largest aid operation helping some 4.2 million people.

Jamous needs a stomach biopsy that cannot be performed at a UN hospital.

Late on Tuesday, Sudanese state media reported that Bashir had appointed his close adviser Nafie Ali Nafie as the government’s new chief negotiator for Darfur.

Nafie Ali Nafie replaces the formidable Majzoub al-Khalifa, who died in a car crash on the way to a family funeral in June.

—Reuters