The third round of peace talks aimed at ending a 22-month-old crisis in Sudan's troubled Darfur region has been suspended after the rebels accused government forces of continuing attacking them.  

"The talks have been suspended because the government continued to air strike our forces until last week," said Ahmed Tugod, spokesman for one of the main two rebels in Darfur, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) on Monday.

He confirmed that the other rebel, Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM), also made the same decision.

"If government forces stop the offensive, we will continue the talks," Tugod added.

Both the rebels and the Khartoum government have been trading accusations over the violations of ceasefire agreement signed earlier. Officials from the African Union said the violations were poisoning the current round of talks starting on last Saturday in Abuja, capital of Nigeria.

Assane Ba, an African Union spokesman, told reporters earlier in the day that the violations went from 13 cases in September to 52 by early December. "This is poisoning the atmosphere," he said.

The continued fighting also made Jan Pronk, UN special representative for Sudan, question what could be achieved in Abuja.

"This round of negotiations ... is headed for failure if the parties do not show restraint," Pronk said in a statement released last week.

But AU officials still hoped the talks could go on as planned on Tuesday.

The talks in Abuja are aimed at finding a peace deal to the conflict in Darfur, which the United Nations described as the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

Locked in the conflict are the two rebel groups, the JEM and the SLM, who are at war with government forces said to be represented by the Arab militia called Janjaweed since February 2003.

The Sudanese government has however repeatedly distanced itself from the militia.

Thousands were reportedly killed and one million others displaced in Darfur as a result of the conflict.

Around 900 AU troops and monitors are now on the ground, although more than 3,000 have been pledged.

(Xinhua News Agency December 14, 2004)