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Washington - US President George W Bush imposed new economic sanctions Tuesday on Sudan to help stop “genocide” in Darfur and said he would ask the United Nations to ban government military flights over the region.

Sudan’s government blasted the US and the United Nations, as the international body vowed to continue pursuing talks with Khartoum to end the Darfur conflict.

The US slapped sanctions on 30 companies, including five in Sudan’s booming oil industry, and froze the assets of two senior Sudanese government officials and a rebel leader whose group refused to sign last year’s Darfur peace agreement.

Also included is a company that has been transporting weapons to the Sudanese government and militia forces in Darfur, Bush said at the White House. The sanctions bar the companies and individuals from all business transactions through the US financial system.

“For too long, the people of Darfur have suffered at the hands of a government that is complicit in the bombing, murder, and rape of innocent civilians,” Bush said at the White House.

A Sudanese Foreign Ministry spokesman said the sanctions were unjustified, would heighten tensions between the two countries and “are not going to solve the problem of Darfur.”

“The government of Sudan is working with the UN and the African Union to reach a solution,” spokesman Ali Al-Sadig told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon told reporters after Bush announced the sanctions that he plans to continue, in coordination with the African Union, to pursue talks with Khartoum to end the Darfur conflict.

Ban had asked Washington not to order new sanctions against the Sudanese government to allow diplomacy to work. He had been pushing for a two-track approach with intensified dialogue between Khartoum and the UN and AU and the formation of a joint UN-AU peacekeeping force of more than 20,000 troops to end the conflict in Darfur.

US diplomats will begin talks with Britain and other allies on a new UN Security Council resolution to tighten sanctions on the government of President Omar al-Bashir, including a ban on “offensive military flights over Darfur.”

“I call on President Bashir to stop his obstruction, and to allow the peacekeepers in, and to end the campaign of violence that continues to target innocent men, women and children,” Bush said.

The US move came ahead of next week’s Group of Eight summit in Germany, where Bush and seven other world leaders are expected to discuss Darfur.

Watchdog group Human Rights Watch called on the European Union to adopt similar sanctions following the G8 meeting, calling the US move “welcome but long overdue.”

The US accuses Sudan of obstructing the entry of UN peacekeepers into Darfur, where violence involving rebels and government-backed Arab militias, known as janjaweed, has left an estimated 300,000 people dead and more than 2 million displaced since 2003.

Under a November accord, Sudan’s government committed to allow a combined UN-AU force of more than 20,000 peacekeepers into Darfur. It would beef up a poorly equipped, 7,000-strong AU force policing an area roughly the size of France.

“They have stonewalled the implementation of this step by step. So we really haven’t made any progress,” Andrew Natsios, Bush’s special envoy for Sudan, told Cable News Network (CNN).

Bush threatened Sudan with sanctions in April, but agreed to hold off to give the UN more time to negotiate with Sudanese officials on the proposed deployment of a combined AU-UN force.

“President Bashir’s actions over the past few weeks follow a long pattern of promising cooperation while finding new methods for obstruction,” Bush said.

Sudan’s ambassador to the UN rejected the charges and blamed anti- government rebels in Darfur for the violence and bloodshed in the region.

Bashir “has not opposed anything,” but the international community needs to pressure rebel groups that have not signed the November accord, John Ukec Lueth told CNN.

In April, Sudan agreed to allow the first two phases of a UN deployment - some 3,000 UN peacekeepers and logistical staff.

Ban has also called for intensified humanitarian aid to people in Darfur who have suffered the most under the conflict, which has killed more than 300,000 people since 2003 and displaced more than 2 million refugees.

“I hope the international community can work in a mutually reinforcing way to bring peace and security in Darfur,” Ban said. He also urged Khartoum and rebel factions to meet international calls for ending the war.

Asked whether the new US sanctions would affect his work, Ban said, “We’ll have to see. What I can tell you at this time is I am doing my work as much as I can as secretary general.”

The Security Council had planned to send a delegation to Sudan in mid-June to review the situation.

Russia questioned Bush’s new sanctions, saying they differ from the overall strategy of the UN Security Council and Ban, which emphasize diplomacy and peacekeeping to end the ethnic conflict.

“To my mind it’s a departure from the current common strategy of the secretary general and the Security Council,” said Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, noting that there has been “some encouraging progress.”

“If the overall strategy is changed, what is the role of the Security Council?” Vitaly asked, following a closed-door session of the 15-nation council.

French Ambassador Jean Marc de la Sabliere said the new US sanctions “may be necessary, may be they are not.”

“What we want is efficiency in the council, as much as possible,” he said. “It means working in consultations with other council members.”

The UN last year imposed an arms and travel sanctions against Sudan, but those measures had not been fully implemented.

Targeted by the US sanctions were Ahmad Muhammed Harun, Sudan’s state minister for humanitarian affairs, who has been accused of war crimes by the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands.

Also placed under sanctions was Sudan’s chief of military intelligence and security, Awad Ibn Auf, along with Khalil Ibrahim, leader of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), a rebel group that refused to sign the November peace deal.

China, which has growing oil interests in Sudan to fuel its booming economy, will be key to any new UN sanctions.

Beijing said before the US move was announced that it would oppose more sanctions against Sudan and defend its cooperation in oil exploitation with the Sudanese government.

“If you only put pressure on Sudan, it is not helpful to resolving the issue [of Darfur]; it can only make the issue more complicated,” said Liu Guijin, a special envoy to Sudan for Chinese President Hu Jintao.