Sudan sought Arab help yesterday to head off possible sanctions threatened by the United Nations if Khartoum fails to rein in marauding militiamen accused of genocide and ethnic cleansing in its western Darfur region. Sudan has three weeks left to convince the UN Security Council about its willingness to disarm the Janjaweed militia or face possible sanctions. Darfur rebels says Khartoum backs Janjaweed attacks to drive non-Arab villagers off their land.

Sudan?s Foreign Minister, Mustafa Osman Ismail, said Khartoum was seeking political support from Arab ministers, due to meet at the Arab League in Cairo, ?which will lead to the halting of any attempts to target Sudan or issuing sanctions against it?. The Cairo-based Arab League has said the threat of sanctions will not help resolve the crisis in Darfur, where the UN says fighting has killed 50,000, displaced one million and made two million starving.

?The government has demonstrated recently its willingness and its commitment to work for the resolution of this conflict. We want to encourage them, not antagonise them,? Arab League spokesman Hossam Zaki said. Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit, which agreed plan with the UN to tackle the humanitarian crisis and disarm the militia, was proving its credibility.

Samir Hosni, director of African-Arab cooperation at the League, said the foreign ministers would discuss how to help Khartoum implement the UN resolution, which asks that the government prosecute the Janjaweed leaders.

But New York-based Human Rights Watch urged the Arab League to put pressure on Sudan?s government, not protect it. ?Allowing the Sudanese government to hide its crimes behind Arab solidarity would be an insult to more than one million Muslim victims in Darfur,? said Peter Takirambudde, executive director of the group?s Africa division. ?The Arab League should stand behind the victims in Darfur ,? he added.

A conflict between nomadic Arab herders and settled African villagers erupted in early 2003 when two Darfur rebel groups took up arms against Khartoum. The Arab Janjaweed replied with the killing, rights groups say.

Sudan?s government and the two Darfur rebel groups fighting in the western Darfur region have agreed to peace talks in Abuja, Nigeria on August 23, the African Union (AU) said yesterday. AU spokesman Adam Thiam said the group?s chairman, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, would mediate discussions between the Sudanese government, the Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudan Liberation Army in the Nigerian capital. Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said the government would participate in the talks without conditions.

?The Khartoum government will put forward a paper to the Abuja meeting about Sudan?s vision for dealing with the political crisis,? he told reporters in Cairo. There was no direct word from the rebels confirming they would attend, but Thiam said they would be there.

?The talks will be a continuation of the political dialogue started in Addis Ababa on July 15 under the auspices of the African Union,? he said.

Those talks failed when the rebels set six conditions for negotiations and Khartoum immediately rejected them. The chief demands included Sudan?s demilitarization of Darfur and an inquiry into genocide charges.

The 53-member AU is proposing to send up to 2,000 troops to protect its ceasefire monitors in Darfur and to serve as peacekeepers, but has yet to send a formal request to Khartoum.

On Saturday, Sudan said it would permit African troops to protect their monitors, but said only its troops would handle the peacekeeping functions.

Tom Perry