KHARTOUM, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- Sudan was ready for talks with the international community on the security situation in the troubled western Sudanese region of Darfur, a spokesman for the Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Saturday.

    Jamal Mohammed Ibrahim said his government "has not closed the door on dialogue" on the Darfur issue.

    The spokesman made the remarks in responds to a warning made by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan who said that the Sudanese leaders could be responsible for the refusal of UN peacekeepers for Darfur.

    Annan said the Sudanese leadership "may be held collectively and individually responsible for what happened to the population of Darfur," noting that the situation in Darfur was "serious and desperate."

    The UN chief made the warning after the Sudanese government firmly rejected the recent UN Security Council Resolution 1706, which calls for the deployment of international peacekeeping forces to replace the underfunded and ill-equipped African troops monitoring a fragile cease-fire in Darfur.

    Reiterating his opposition for the international peacekeepers deployment in Darfur at an African Union (AU) summit in Surt, Libya, Sudanese President Omer al-Bashir asked the pan-African body to take a final decision on the fate of the African forces in Darfur.

    On Monday, the Sudanese government said it would ask the AU forces to leave after their mandate expires by the end of this month.

    However, Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Mohammed Taha said on Friday that if the AU decided to extend its forces' peacekeeping mandate in Darfur, then they would be welcomed by the Sudanese government.

    The Darfur conflict erupted in February 2003 when rebels took up arms against the government, accusing it of marginalizing the region.

    Hundreds of people have been killed and millions of others displaced in the three-year-old conflict. Enditem