Speaking on behalf of the United Nations and African Union, Jan Eliasson, the UN special envoy to Darfur, said the rebels "recommended that final talks should be held between two to three months from now".

The rebel factions "presented a common platform on power-sharing, wealth-sharing, security arrangements, land and humanitarian issues, for the final negotiations," they said in a final statement at the end of a three-day meeting in a luxury resort in Arusha near Mount Kilimanjaro.

Eliasson said that the Darfur groups remained open to rebel leaders who had not attended the negotiations.

The rebels, Eliasson said, "decided to keep open the possibility for those who were invited but did not participate in the Arusha consultations to join their common platform, in order to have an inclusive representation".

The absence of some influential rebel leaders had raised doubts over the chances of the talks succeeding.

Khartoum accused Paris of failing to encourage Abdel Wahed Mohamed el-Nur, a prominent leader, to attend.

The large Sudan Liberation Army-Unity faction also declined to participate in the talks in protest over Suleiman Jamous, its humanitarian coordinator, being virtually held as a prisoner in a UN hospital near Darfur.