KEY POINTS:
ADDIS ABABA - Sudan accepts in principle United Nations and African Union forces in Darfur but has yet to agree on the number of troops to be deployed, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said.
"It is agreed in principle that, pending clarification of the size of the force, we should be able to take it forward," he said.
Diplomats said Sudan also had concerns over who would command the force and that Sudanese officials were returning to Khartoum for consultations with the government.
All sides at the talks on Darfur at the African Union headquaters said substantial progress had been made but there were major sticking points.
"The UN says 17,000 (troops), that figure is very high. We think 11,000 to 12,000," said Sudan's UN ambassador Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamad.
The United Nations plan also calls for 3,000 police.
Annan said the force would be predominantly African.
"The troops should be sourced from Africa as far as possible and the command and control structure would be provided by the UN," he said.
- REUTERS
