CAIRO, 26 June 2004 — International heavyweights are increasing pressure on Sudan to resolve the Darfur crisis, as Khartoum accuses “foreigners” of seeking a new pretext to interfere in its affairs.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said yesterday he would meet US Secretary of State Colin Powell in Sudan next week to press the government over the situation in Darfur.

He said they would be “collectively putting pressure” on Khartoum over the crisis in the strife-torn western region, where pro-government militias are carrying out a campaign that UN officials say amounts to ethnic cleansing.

The US State Department said yesterday Washington would slap punitive sanctions on members of pro-Khartoum militias operating in Darfur and might also apply penalties to Sudanese officials found to be complicit in atrocities there.

Powell is to arrive in Darfur on Tuesday, bringing with him $95 million in emergency humanitarian assistance, which was voted by the US Senate on Thursday. Annan will be close behind, with a trip to Khartoum planned for June 30.

They follow Italian Deputy Foreign Minister Margherita Boniver, her French counterpart Renaud Muselier, Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey and the chief executive of the UN Children’s Fund, Carol Bellamy.

The diplomatic missions have gained urgency with the arrival of the rainy season, which will hinder aid to the region by making roads impassable.

“The people of Darfur are suffering a catastrophe,” Annan told a press conference at UN headquarters in New York. “Hundreds of thousands of lives are at stake.”

He said nations should be ready to take action in Sudan if the government of President Omar Beshir could not safeguard the people of Darfur.

“If the Sudanese government doesn’t have the capacity to protect its population, the international community must be prepared to assist,” Annan said.

“The most sacred responsibility of any government is to protect its people against the kind of crimes that have been committed in Darfur.”

But while the Sudanese president pledged last weekend to rein in the pro-government militias, he accused “foreigners” of wanting to use Darfur as a way to intervene in Sudanese affairs, just as peace is imminent between his government and southern rebels.

“Foreign circles, conscious that a new phase has begun concerning the problem of south (Sudan) in a healthy way, are trying to find a substitute gate in Darfur to intervene in Sudanese affairs,” Beshir told the Egyptian daily Al-Gumhuriya in an interview carried on Thursday.

Khartoum and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army were due to start a crucial final round of talks yesterday to clinch a definitive end to the 21-year civil war in southern Sudan, which has claimed the lives of at least 1.5 million people and displaced four million others.

But the talks were postponed for two days at the request of both sides to give more time for consultation, chief mediator Lazaro Sumbeiywo said on Thursday.

Fighting broke out in Darfur in February 2003 when black African rebel groups — complaining that their region was marginalized and local people poorly protected — rose up against the Khartoum government.

The government’s response was to give an Arab militia, the Janjawid, a free rein in cracking down on the rebels. Beshir defended the Janjawid, saying the “problem in Darfur was never an ethnic one and the proof is that there are confrontations between Arab tribes”.

He also denied accusations by humanitarian groups that his government was blocking aid from reaching Darfur. “The government has never put a single obstacle on the path of the humanitarian organizations,” Beshir said.

A UN human rights report released last month accused the Sudanese government of committing massive human rights violations in Darfur. At least 10,000 people have been killed in the western region, although many believe the toll is grossly underestimated.

Another one million have been displaced. At least 120,000 refugees have poured into neighboring Chad from ravaged Darfur.