By Opheera McDoom

KHARTOUM, Aug 5 (Reuters) - Sudan has expressed its anger to France for refusing to press a key Darfur rebel leader to attend a U.N.-African Union mediated meeting of rebels in Tanzania aimed at forging a united position ahead of peace talks.

Abdel Wahed Mohamed el-Nur, founder and chairman of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) has only a few troops in the central Jabel Marra region. But he commands huge support among some 2.5 million Darfuris living in refugee camps after violence in Sudan's remote west.

He refused to attend the talks in Arusha, Tanzania, until an oil-for-food programme and no-fly zone is implemented in Darfur.

"The foreign ministry summoned the French ambassador to Sudan... and expressed the anger of the Sudanese government at the French government's failure to push...Nur ..to attend the meetings in Arusha," the foreign ministry said in a statement seen by Reuters on Sunday.

It said this behaviour was out of line with comments by France on how important it viewed the Darfur issue.

And it accused France of bias by holding the government responsible for the suffering of the people of Darfur while ignoring the responsibility of the rebels.

"The government was shocked at France's failure to push the one rebel leader present in its country to attend a meeting aimed at ending the suffering of the people of Darfur," it said.

The French foreign ministry was not immediately available to comment.

Since a Darfur peace deal signed last year with only one of three rebel negotiating factions, the insurgents have split into more than a dozen groups. International experts estimate some 200,000 have died in more than four years of conflict in Darfur.

U.N. envoy Jan Eliasson and his African Union counterpart Salim Ahmed Salim have gathered many key factions and commanders in Arusha, but problems remain.

Key field commanders Jar el-Neby and Suleiman Marajan arrived on Saturday, but the large SLA-Unity faction, headed by Abdallah Yehia, refused to participate in the meeting until SLA Humanitarian Coordinator Suleiman Jamous was freed.

JAMOUS RELEASE

Jamous has been virtually imprisoned in a U.N. hospital in Kordofan, neighbouring Darfur, for 13 months as the government threatened to arrest him if he left. Khartoum says it is open to talks on his release.

Jamous said he had called Yehia and field commanders to ask them to participate in the talks, but they refused.

"Yehia told me that our force commanders in the field were still refusing and if he attended the talks, the movement may split," said Jamous.

SLA-Unity controls large swathes of land in Darfur and is made up of key SLA figures.

"The field commanders had a meeting but they refused my request," said Jamous. He said they should attend in the spirit of achieving a speedy peace for the region.

Jamous was the key liaison figure between the world's largest humanitarian operation and rebels, keeping violence and looting of aid convoys down. Attacks have forced aid agencies to scale down operations with some 500,000 war victims out of reach.

Mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms in early 2003 accusing central government of neglecting the arid region. Khartoum mobilised mostly-Arab militias to quell the revolt.

The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for a junior government minister and a militia leader accused of conspiring to commit war crimes in Darfur. Khartoum says the ICC has no authority over Sudanese citizens.

AlertNet news is provided by