By Cynthia Johnston

KHARTOUM, June 3 (Reuters) - The African Union and United Nations are working to appoint a joint chief mediator to jumpstart efforts to bring peace to Sudan's Darfur region, U.N. Darfur envoy Jan Eliasson said on Monday.

The former Swedish foreign minister, who is also working on a new diplomatic initiative for Darfur, said the selection process was in its final stages.

"Our job was to re-energise the political process," he told journalists in Khartoum, where he was on a visit for talks with Sudanese officials.

Experts estimate some 200,000 have died and 2.5 million have been forced from their homes in five years of ethnic and political conflict in the Darfur region. Khartoum says only 10,000 people have been killed.

Efforts by Eliasson and his African Union counterpart Salim Ahmed Salim to end the festering conflict have been complicated by a surprise strike across the desert last month by Darfur's Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).

The attack was only stopped on the outskirts of Khartoum and prompted Sudan to rule out negotiations with the rebels, whose leader Khalil Ibrahim last month called on Eliasson and Salim to resign.

Nevertheless, Eliasson said he would travel to Geneva on Tuesday for talks with regional players Chad and Eritrea, and would later meet international observers including the European Union before briefing the U.N. Security Council on June 24.

He said he was willing to stay on in an advisory function once the new mediator is in place, adding that the mediator should have a "very, very strong mandate."

"We will do everything we can to bring about restraint on the side of the parties, both government and movements at this stage," he said. "I hope they realise the futility of thinking of military solutions to this tragic problem."

He also lamented the slow pace of deployment of a joint U.N., African Union force for Darfur: "I am very depressed by what I am seeing."

FORCE DELAYS

For his part, the U.S. envoy to Sudan Richard Williamson said on Monday that plans to bring more than 20,000 peacekeepers to Darfur by the end of the year would fail without U.N. reforms and more training of troops.

More than five months after UNAMID's launch, only just over 9,000 out of a promised 26,000-strong UNAMID force have arrived in Darfur - a remote and lawless region the size of France.

"The (U.N.) Secretary General has said that he believes that 80 per cent of the UNAMID deployment can happen this calendar year," Williamson said at the end of a five-day trip to Sudan.

"But that will not happen. However sincere he is, that will not happen unless there are changes, both to the U.N.'s capacity to absorb those troops and in our efforts to prepare troops."

Mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms in early 2003 accusing the central government of neglect. But rebel divisions and the government's mobilisation of mostly Arab tribal militia have created a mix of armed groups and a breakdown of law and order.

Washington calls the violence genocide, a term European governments are reluctant to use and Khartoum rejects.

(Additional reporting by Andrew Heavens; Editing by Jon Boyle)

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