The United States sees China as a key to ending the six-year war between the Arab government in Khartoum and ethnic minority rebels in Darfur because it is a government ally, military supplier and importer of Sudanese oil.

"This is all an effort to align positions on the Darfur peace process under the leadership of United Nations-African Union joint chief mediator Djibril Bassole," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters.

Under the UN-AU umbrella, a hybrid peacekeeping force called UNAMID was authorized in July 2007 by the UN Security Council and began deployments over the last year.

Even though it is to grow into the largest UN peacekeeping force in the world at an estimated strength of 26,000, deployments have been bogged down in large part by a lack of cooperation from the Sudanese government.

Kelly said that Gration will leave Saturday for China and return to Washington June 1.

He will meet with senior Chinese government officials in China, and hold a meeting with his counterparts from China, Russia, Britain, France and the European Union in Doha, Qatar, a broker of the Darfur peace talks.

He will then travel to London for talks with senior British officials and reconvene the so-called Sudan diplomatic troika of the United States, Britain and Norway.

In London, Gration will also take part in the Contact Group on Sudan -- Canada, the European Union, France, Netherlands, Norway, Britain and the United States -- which is following up on the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement.

The agreement ended a nearly 22-year war between Sudan's north and south, the longest civil war in Africa that led to the deaths of around two million people. The Contact Group last met in Brussels in December.

He will visit Paris to meet with senior French officials and try to encourage Sudan Liberation Army faction leader Abdul Wahid Mohammed Nur, who is exiled in France, to join the Darfur peace process.

Though he has visited Sudan since his appointment by President Barack Obama on March 18, he will not do so on this trip, Kelly said.

Darfur's most active rebel group, the Justice and Equality Movement, resumed Qatari-brokered talks with Sudanese government officials on May 6 aimed at reaching an agreement for lasting peace in the war-ravaged region.

The Justice and Equality Movement had suspended negotiations with Khartoum in the wake of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant issued in March against Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir on war crimes charges.

Last month, the JEM rebuffed Qatari efforts to broker new peace talks, charging that Khartoum had failed to honor a confidence-building deal in February aimed at paving the way for more substantial peace negotiations.

It said it wanted the Sudanese government to backtrack on its decision to expel 13 humanitarian organizations from Darfur after the ICC warrant was issued.

The United Nations says the six-year conflict has claimed 300,000 lives and that more than 2.2 million people have fled their homes since ethnic minority rebels in Darfur rose up against the regime in February 2003.

Sudan says 10,000 people have been killed.

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