Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir slammed the United States on Sunday, saying Washington had a hidden agenda behind its campaign for a UN peacekeeping operation in Darfur, west Sudan.

Addressing cabinet ministers and journalists in Khartoum, Bashir said that by pressuring Sudan to agree to a UN force in Darfur, the United States and Britain were intending to create a "new Middle East" in the interests of Israel.

Darfur has been plagued for more than three years by a conflict between government troops, militias and rebel groups.

"They want to use the Darfur issue to re-colonize Sudan," Bashir said.

He reiterated that he totally rejected the resolution adopted by the UN Security Council on Aug. 31 calling for a 20,000-strong UN force to be deployed in Darfur.

"The resolution would in effect put Sudan under an international mandate," Bashir said. "It negates every institution of the Sudanese state." Under the resolution, the UN force would replace the 7,000 African Union (AU) peacekeepers currently stationed in Darfur. At a recent meeting in New York, AU leaders agreed to extend for at least three months the mandate of the AU force, which expires on Sept. 30.

Bashir also accused Western news media of exaggerating the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, and questioned the precision of their reports of the conflict's death toll.

"I challenge any precise statistic that shows the fighting killed more than 10,000 people in Darfur," he said.

According to Western media, the Darfur conflict has left more than 200,000 people dead and 2.5 million others have been driven from their homes. The U.S. government has labeled the violence as "genocide," a claim strongly rejected by Khartoum.

Source: Xinhua