KHARTOUM (AFP) - Prime Minister Tony Blair used a flying visit to Khartoum to hand the Sudanese leadership a list of demands to alleviate the "terrible" situation in the war-torn western region of Darfur.
Flying into the capital early Wednesday morning, Blair headed straight into talks with President Omar al-Beshir and Vice President Ali Osman Taha before calling for a peace agreement to cover the whole of Sudan by the end of 2004.
The prime minister -- who underwent an operation to correct a heart flutter just five days earlier -- told a press conference that he had issued a list of five demands aimed at ending the 20-month-old conflict and the humanitarian crisis in Darfur.
"We want the government to commit to reaching a comprehensive agreement, north and south, in Sudan by the end of the year," Blair said, referring to the multiple ethnic rebellions dogging the Arab-dominated regime in Khartoum.
And if progess is not made, "the pressure remains on" at the UN Security Council for sanctions, Blair told reporters as he sweltered in 40 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) heat in the garden of the British embassy.
"All of us have watched over the past months with concern and alarm to the death, the disease, the destruction that has come to Darfur, and the terrible humanitarian situation that has arisen as a result," Blair said.
He called for a major boost to African Union forces in Darfur, which currently number just 300 in a region the size of France, and more action by Khartoum to create the security and other conditions to allow aid to reach the estimated 1.4 million people displaced by conflict.
He also called for the identification of all government troops and militia, and an agreement by the rebels to stand down their fighters, as part of an overall peace deal for Sudan.
A 21-year-old uprising by rebels of the Sudan People`s Liberation Army in the mainly Christian and animist south is Africa`s longest-running conflict.
The Beja community in the east and the minorities of the Nuba mountains in the centre have also spawned rebellions, while the main opposition parties in Khartoum established an armed wing after they were banned by Beshir`s military-backed regime.
Blair said the fact he had travelled to Khartoum -- the first ever visit to an independent Sudan by a serving British premier -- showed "the seriousness with which this is taken".
The conflict in Darfur since February 2003 has left an estimated 50,000 people dead. The UN has threatened sanctions against Sudan if it does not take steps to disarm the Arab Janjaweed militias, responsible for much of the violence.
The crisis erupted when Sudan called on the militias to help subdue a revolt by the region`s non-Arab minorities.
"The international focus will not go away while this issue remains outstanding," Blair added, describing his talks with Beshir and Taha as "frank and open and, I think, constructive".
Blair warned that once Khartoum had committed to peace, "they have then got to follow through with practice."
However he played down the idea of sending British troops to the region, saying: "I am not sure there is any desire on the part of the African Union for outside forces to come in."
Britain would, however, provide financial and logistical support to African Union peacekeepers, Blair said.
He was due to fly to the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa later Wednesday for a two-day meeting of the Commission for Africa, his personal project designed to galvanise development efforts.
Blair, who has pledged to make Africa one of his key policies during 2005, when Britain holds the rotating presidency of both the G8 rich nations` club and the European Union, was due to leave later in the day for Ethiopia.
The British premier insisted he was fit and well after the heart operation, joking with reporters that: "There is nothing I find more conducive to my recuperation and recovery than engagement with the British media.