Sudan dismissed on Thursday British Prime Minister Tony Blair's threats of sanctions and a "no-fly zone" over Darfur and said it welcomed a UN mission in the region "as long as it reflects the reality on the ground".
Blair's spokesman quoted the prime minister as saying during a visit to Washington last week that the option of a no-fly zone in Darfur should be considered as part of possible sanctions against Sudan if it did not agree to a UN peace plan.
"Statements like this ... do not enhance peace," said Al-Samani al-Wasiyla, the Sudanese state minister for foreign relations. "They prolong the crisis," he told Reuters.
The United States is also growing increasingly frustrated with Sudan's refusal to accept an international forch the international community can only be done through consultation and dialogue," he said.
Sudan has rejected a UN Security Council resolution authorising the deployment of 22,500 UN troops and police in Darfur, where experts say around 200,000 people have been killed since the conflict flared in 2003 when rebels took up arms against the government, accusing it of neglect. Sudan says Western media have invented and exaggerated the crisis in Darfur and only 9,000 people have died there.
The violence prompted the UN's 47-state Human Rights Council to agree on Wednesday to send a high-level mission to Darfur to investigate allegations of worsening abuses against civilians.
Al-Wasiyla said his government would welcome the commission as long as it came in good faith. "We have never closed our door in the face of any committee as long as it wants to help us. We will deal with it and want it to reflect what it sees on the ground," he said.
"People talk about the situation in Darfur and they forget that most areas in Darfur are calm ... that the aftermath of war cannot be solved within 24 hours."
Rights group, rebels and a former rebel group that signed a peace deal with the government say Khartoum has armed a proxy militia accused of war crimes in Darfur.
The government denies supporting the militias, locally known as the Janjaweed.
The militias have been accused of triggering deadly clashes in El Fasher, the main town in Darfur, last week that killed at least six people.
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