KHARTOUM, Sudan - Sudan and the United Nations have agreed on key elements of a joint African Union-UN peacekeeping force for Darfur, including that its commander will be African, a UN diplomat said Sunday.

Sudanese president Omar Al-Bashir, right, meets with UN's Security Council in Khartoum, Sudan, Sunday, June 17, 2007. [AP]

A UN Security Council delegation met with the Sudanese government and confirmed the country had unconditionally accepted the joint force for the region mired in bloodshed.

Emyr Jones Parry, the British ambassador to the UN, said key aspects of the force were agreed upon, including the command structure. The force commander will be an African jointly appointed by the UN and the AU, he said.

"There is a unity of command ... the command and control processes will be those of the United Nations," Jones Parry said. "That has been consistently said and is necessary if indeed this operation is to be funded from the peacekeeping budget of the United Nations."

The UN delegation visited after months of Sudanese dallying on the exact nature and mandate of the 19,000-member force to replace the overwhelmed 7,000-member AU force now in Darfur.

"I can tell you that the (Sudanese) foreign minister told us in no uncertain terms that the government of Sudan accepted the hybrid operation without any conditionality," said South Africa's ambassador to the UN, Dumisani Kumalo.

"The president himself just confirmed the same thing to us," he told reporters after meeting Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on Sunday.

Sudan had insisted Africans to make up the entire peacekeeping mission, but last week, the country indicated it would accept contributions from non-African countries if necessary.

Sudanese Foreign Minister Lam Akol called on the UN to quickly pass a new resolution to fund the operation. Sudanese officials said earlier this week they expected the new force to be in Darfur by October, depending on how fast the UN and AU are able to get troops and funds.

Also Sunday, the British aid group Oxfam said insecurity led it to permanently close its humanitarian operation in Darfur's largest refugee camp, Gereida.

The compounds of several aid groups in Gereida were attacked in a December raid during which a female French aid worker was raped and several others endured mock executions. Some Sudanese aid workers were severely beaten up in the camp of 130,000 refugees.