UNITED NATIONS – A week after Secretary General Annan said Khartoum is “softening” its opposition to a U.N. force that could save lives in Darfur, Turtle Bay planners are yet to be allowed in the country.

The U.N. peacekeeping department, which planned to send an assessment team to Darfur on March 6, is yet to receive permission from the Sudanese government to enter the country so they can begin planning for the deployment of an up to 20,000-troop force to monitor the violence in Sudan.

And while President Bush yesterday reiterated his determination to involve NATO in support of the efforts to halt the Darfur genocide, Sudan did not signal it would relent on its resistance to any involvement of troops that are not part of the existing weak force controlled by the African Union.

“We are not there yet,” U.N. spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, told The New York Sun yesterday when asked if visas were extended by Khartoum to U.N. military planners who would begin preparations for a Darfur force.

According to one Turtle Bay official, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the negotiations, the peacekeeping department is hoping permission would be given after next week’s Arab League summit, which convenes in Khartoum. “We are not going to get a definitive answer before that,” the official said.

Sudan, influential both among members of the African Union and the Arab League, has so far blocked any attempt to send U.N. troops to Darfur. A European diplomat who asked to re main anonymous said that the U.N. planners were scheduled to leave for Sudan for a two-week mission. But Mr. Bush’s public talk about NATO’s involvement created a backlash among members of the African Union, the European diplomat said.

With American help, NATO could “make it clear to the Sudanese government that we’re intent upon providing security for the people there and upon helping work toward a lasting peace agreement,” Mr. Bush said again yesterday at the White House, where he met NATO’s Secretary General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.

“I’m quite sure, as I told the president, that when the U.N. comes, the NATO allies will be ready to do more in enabling a United Nations force in Darfur,” Mr. Scheffer added.

Last month, the U.N. Security Council approved a principled plan to replace the current African Union 7500-troop in Darfur with a better equipped force under U.N. command, which would carry a mandate to stop atrocities.

Last week in Addis Ababa, however, the African Union decided instead to extend the mandate of its troops for six months, delaying the decision on the transfer of authority to the U.N. Mr. Annan hailed that African Union decision, saying that it would allow the peacekeeping department more planning time.

Over the weekend, while on a trip to Africa, Mr. Annan said he was aware that Sudan was “not so hot” on the idea of a Darfur force under U.N. command. Nevertheless, he added, “I hope we will have the cooperation of the Sudanese government.”