French President Nicolas Sarkozy has called on the world to be 'firm' with Sudan if it refuses to co-operate with efforts to end the conflict in Darfur.
He said 'silence was killing' in the troubled region, as he opened talks in Paris between the world's major powers.
Sarkozy said he hoped to strengthen international efforts to broker a political solution; something US officials say is vital to help the proposed hybrid force stabilize the region.
He also said the existing force of 7,000 AU troops, which is widely seen as ineffective and is to be reinforced by the proposed hybrid force, must get more funding. He said France was willing to contribute roughly €10m.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said the meeting was 'clearly about political support for the initiatives taken by the African Union and the United Nations'.
Speaking before the summit, the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the world has failed the people of Darfur.
The meeting comes after Sudan bowed to months of pressure and agreed to the deployment of peacekeepers in Darfur under the UN and the African Union.
Some 200,000 people have died and 2.4m have fled the violence in Darfur since 2003.
The US, France, China and Egypt are attending the meeting; Sudan and representatives from rebel factions are not present.
The AU, which is reported to be sceptical about the meeting's purpose, also stayed away.
The Paris conference is nevertheless seen as an opportunity to help end the conflict in Darfur, which has pitted a rebel insurgency against the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum and its proxy militia known as the Janjaweed, whose leader stands accused of war crimes.
Ms Rice said Khartoum should accept the hybrid force and stop the process of trying to scale it back.
