By Salah Sarrar

TRIPOLI, April 18 (Reuters) - The State Department's No. 2 official urged regional mediator Libya on Wednesday to back the deployment of "robust" international peacekeepers in Sudan's Darfur region and on the Chad/Central African Republic border.

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who promotes African solutions to African conflicts, has denounced non-African involvement in peacekeeping in Africa as a new form of colonialism and regards neighbouring Sudan and Chad as his diplomatic turf.

Sudan agreed this week to a "hybrid operation" in which 3,000 U.N. personnel and heavy support equipment would reinforce the African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur, west Sudan.

The AU peacekeepers have been unable to stem the violence in Darfur, a territory as big as France, where at least 200,000 people have been killed since 2003 in ethnic and political conflict triggered by a rebellion.

The violence has now spilled over to Chad and Central African Republic. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte told reporters after a 24-hour visit to Libya that he applauded Libyan efforts to end fighting in the region and Washington and Tripoli were now able to "work as partners on areas of mutual interest".

The highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Libya in decades, Negroponte added: "I also urged my Libyan interlocutors to support the deployment of two international peacekeeping forces in the region."

"The first is a hybrid UN-African Union force for Darfur, with a single unified chain of command that conforms to U.N. standards and practices."

"The second is a U.N. peacekeeping force for eastern Chad and the northeastern Central African Republic. These robust international forces are necessary to improve the security of affected populations."

Gaddafi has hosted a string of mini-summits and other gatherings in the past two years on the war in Darfur, where an estimated 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million driven from their homes since 2003.

But the United States has in the past been quietly critical of Libya's role in Darfur, accusing Tripoli of trying to set up negotiations with Khartoum that are at odds with the U.N. push for a joint U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force for Darfur.

Washington and London, accusing Khartoum of not doing enough to bring peace to the violence-torn region, have put pressure on Sudan to allow a robust U.N. peacekeeping force into Darfur.

Sudan has not agreed to the final phase of the plan, in which at least 10,000 more troops would go into Darfur to form a hybrid force with AU troops.

Negroponte said he had had "excellent" discussions with Foreign Minister Mohammed Abdel-Rahman Shalgam and Ali Triki, Libya's envoy on Chad and Sudan.

"We share many points of view and many interests in common with regard to the situation in Darfur. We agreed to continue consulting together on regular bases about the Darfur issue as well as the other issues concerning the African continent," he said.

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