(AFP) – 19 hours ago

WASHINGTON — US special envoy on Sudan was heading to the region Monday, the State Department said, after controversial remarks criticizing US sanctions against the African state.

Retired general Scott Gration was due to visit Sudan, Ethiopia and Egypt on the week-long trip ending next Monday, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said.

The visit comes as the United States drafts a new policy on Sudan, which has incurred an international furor over bloodshed in the western region of Darfur, a campaign that US officials have called genocide

"I think we are getting close to the point where we will announce the new policy approach on Sudan. I would expect that in the next couple of weeks," Crowley said.

"So I think you'll see the fruits of General Gration's labor emerge here very shortly," he said.

Gration, testifying last month in Congress, upset some lawmakers and activists when he said there was no evidence to keep Sudan on a US terrorism blacklist that triggers punishing economic sanctions.

Gration, a military man and longstanding political ally of President Barack Obama, said the sanctions were actually impeding peacekeeping work in Sudan.

The Obama administration has put a priority on bolstering a fragile 2005 peace deal that ended the two-decade civil war between Sudan's Arab-dominated north and Christian and animist south -- Africa's longest.

The focus has worried some activists concerned about the separate issue of Darfur, where UN estimates say up to 300,000 people have died and 2.7 million have fled their homes.

Gration, who will not visit Khartoum, will go to the southern Sudanese cities of Juba and Malakal, Crowley said.

He will meet with key Darfuri movements in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, and meet with a number of regional leaders in Egypt, he said.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton returned Friday from an 11-day journey throughout Africa but aides said Sudan was not a focus as Gration was handling the review