EL FASHER, Sudan (AP) — U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in Darfur on Wednesday that negotiators were close to setting new peace talks between the government and rebels, an essential step toward ending civilian bloodshed in the devastated region of Sudan.

He said the planned deployment of a 26,000-strong peacekeeping force comprised of African Union and U.N. troops was now on a ''good track'' and ''it is crucially important that a political negotiation process start now.''

Ban said ''we are coming close to agreeing on the venue and date'' for key rebel groups to return to the negotiating table with the Sudanese government.

''I'm really going to step up this political negotiation process,'' he said.

Ban, in Darfur for a firsthand look at the living conditions of some of the 2.5 million people in refugee camps, urged the world to be more sympathetic to the millions whose lives have been uprooted.

He met with officials from the current, strictly AU mission, who told him the beleaguered force now had fewer then 6,000 peacekeepers deployed in this region nearly the size of France — down from its authorized strength of 7,000.

On the third day of a weeklong trip to Sudan, Chad and Libya, Ban also met North Darfur governor Mohamed Kebir at the official's tightly controlled compound. In an apparently orchestrated demonstration there, a crowd chanted pro-government slogans and gave Ban a letter saying Darfur refugees want U.N. help to return to their original villages, a new government policy.

The Sudanese government has appeared increasingly bent on reducing the population in the refugee camps, largely composed of ethnic African farmers chased from their homes by militias of nomad Arabs known as the janjaweed.

Later, when Ban tried to meet with delegates from the camps, the demonstrators returned, this time a dozen people, mostly women, who slipped into the compound, demanded to meet the secretary-general, and chanted slogans, causing the meeting's cancellation.