The African Union has decided to extend the mandate of its peace keeping troops in the western Sudanese region of Darfur for another six months and to hand over the mission to the United Nations later.
However, after a meeting in Ethiopia, AU foreign ministers made clear that they had accepted the Sudanese government's key condition for a UN deployment, that the rebel factions in Darfur should first agree a peace deal.
The UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, welcomed the extension of the AU mandate.
Thousands of people have been killed in the beleaguered Darfur region and some two million have been displaced in the conflict.
