Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal and his Sudanese counterpart Mustafa Ismail attend an emergency meeting of Arab League foreign ministers for the Darfur crisis in Cairo. (AFP)

CAIRO - Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said yesterday that the Sudanese government needs more time to end the crisis in its troubled Darfur region where militias are accused of killing thousands of African villagers.

Moussa also said Arab countries in North Africa are willing to take part in a peacekeeping force to help calm the situation in Sudan’s remote western region, where an 18-month-old conflict has killed about 30,000 people. The United Nations says another one million people have been forced to flee their homes and an estimated 2.2 million people are in urgent need of food, medicine and shelter.

“The international community should provide a suitably timed framework to the Sudanese government to implement its obligations in accordance with the Security Council’s resolution,” Moussa said in an opening speech to an emergency meeting of the 22-member Arab League, called for by Sudan, which included 10 Arab foreign ministers.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal emphasized the need to extend all out support to the Sudanese government to end the Darfur crisis. “The participants expressed their agreement with the African Union as well as the United Nations in their efforts to solve the crisis,” he said and stressed that Sudan’s security requirements must be met before its humanitarian needs.

The UN Security Council passed a resolution on July 30, which the United States pushed for, giving Sudan 30 days to disarm the Arab Janjaweed militias blamed for the violence or face diplomatic and economic penalties.

On Wednesday, the United Nations and Sudan signed a new agreement requiring the Arab-dominated Khartoum government create safe areas in Darfur within 30 days so civilians can search for food and water and work their land without fear of attack.

The “Plan of Action for Darfur” would halt all military operations by government forces, militias, and rebel groups in these safe areas, which are likely to be set up in camps where thousands of Sudanese have taken refuge and around towns and villages which still have large populations. The agreement, which was reached by Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail and UN special representative Jan Pronk, is expected to be signed today in Khartoum.

Moussa did not name the Arab countries in Northern Africa willing to participate in the proposed African Union peacekeeping force. He also urged the Cairo-based league’s 22 member states to provide more humanitarian help to the ravaged region.

The African Union plans to dispatch 1,600-1,800 soldiers to Darfur to protect an unarmed 150-member monitoring mission.

Moussa called for peaceful and just solution to the problem “away from foreign intervention,” a reference to threats by Washington to impose sanctions on Sudan, or the prospect of an international peacekeeping force being sent to Darfur if efforts to end the crisis fail, as suggested by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

African Union Commission Chairman Alpha Omar Konare warned the Arab League of the grave situation in Darfur and accused the Sudanese government of the “mismanagement and marginalization” of Darfur’s indigenous population.

But Ismail, the Sudanese foreign minister, said his government “has exerted all its efforts to contain the crisis peacefully.” He also accused the rebels of trying to establish an independent state in Darfur.

Meanwhile, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has invited Sudanese government and rebel negotiators to Nigeria to resume talks to end the conflict in Darfur.

The leader of southern Sudan’s main rebel group, which is locked in a separate conflict with the government, offered to provide 10,000 troops as peacekeepers who could work alongside government forces to help resolve the Darfur crisis.