Khartoum: UN-chaired talks to end fighting in Sudan's flashpoint oil area of Abyei that has threatened a three-year peace process were delayed today, a day after 22 soldiers were killed.

Heavy fighting yesterday prompted UN chief Ban Ki-moon to call for a truce and Washington to announce it was seeking ways to help end what was the second bout of clashes in less than a week in the mixed ethnic area.

Brigadier General Muntasir Sabil, commander of government troops in Abyei, told AFP by telephone that 22 of his soldiers were killed and 45 wounded yesterday, but that "the situation today is very quiet."

Sabil said the southerners the Sudan People 's Liberation Army (SPLA) that fought a two-decade civil war with Khartoum before a peace agreement was signed in 2005 with the help of US mediation -- had suffered many more losses.

UN spokesman Khaled Mansour said "most likely" a joint military committee between the Sudanese army and the SPLA, chaired by the United Nations, would meet in Khartoum today evening.

"It's not taking place," he later told AFP, however.

In the capital of south Sudan, UN regional coordinator David Gressly said that the joint ceasefire military committee would ideally meet on Thursday.

Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir's National Congress Party was scheduled to hold talks in Khartoum late today.

Its main coalition partner, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, was also scheduled to wrap up a party convention in the southern town of Juba overnight.

Source : PTI