Sudan has signed a ceasefire with rebels from the western Darfur region in talks hoping to end violence that UN officials have described as ethnic cleansing, a state minister said on Thursday.
"They signed a humanitarian ceasefire in N'Djamena last night for the opening up of aid corridors so that aid can be distributed to those in need," Najeeb al-Kheir Abdul Wahab, state minister for foreign affairs, said.
Peace talks in the Chadian capital N'Djamena are continuing with two rebel groups who launched a revolt in February last year accusing the Khartoum government of arming Arab militias in order to loot and burn African villages.
Wahab said the ceasefire would take immediate effect.
"This will be ongoing while the two sides seek to find a political resolution to the conflict," he added.
On Wednesday UN chief Kofi Annan warned a Rwanda-style genocide may be in the making in arid Darfur and said international military force could be needed -- a suggestion that was at once rejected by the Khartoum government.
The UN estimates more than 1 million people have been affected by the conflict in Darfur. Some 110,000 refugees have fled into neighboring Chad.
Two senior UN officials have described the killing and looting as a "scorched earth" campaign and "ethnic cleansing."
Both said Khartoum had done nothing to stop the bloodshed and destruction.
Husam Bashir, director of the Sudanese Human Rights Group in Khartoum, said he hoped the ceasefire would translate on the ground.
He cited concerns such as that marauding militias aligned to both sides had become autonomous in their killing raids.
"We hope that it is going to be put into effect on the ground by both parties, because supporters of the parties are not in uniform," he said.
Rights groups say government-armed militias have taken on a life of their own, raping, killing and looting at random. The government says they are outlaws and denies any link with them.
US President George W. Bush on Wednesday condemned the atrocities by Arab militias in Darfur.
Bush suggested Washington would not normalize relations with Sudan until it stopped the conflict.
Washington still lists Sudan as a "state sponsor of terrorism," but had said it could reconsider the listing if a separate peace deal currently being negotiated to end more than two decades of civil war in southern Sudan was signed.
A southern rebel official said on Wednesday a deal could be reached within three days to end the conflict that broadly pits the Islamist government against rebels in the mainly Christian and animist south, which has claimed some 2 million lives.
But Bashir said a southern peace deal would be meaningless if the fighting continued in Darfur.
"By stopping war in one area while it continues elsewhere you are not going to have peace or development," he said.
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