"The date to launch negotiations has not been fixed," Ahmed ben Abdallah al-Mahmud, Qatari minister of state for foreign affairs, told reporters.

"We will only be able to fix a date after the arrival of delegations and the end of consultations," he said.

Earlier delegations present in Doha had said that direct peace talks between Khartoum and rebel groups had not resumed, with the two sides holding separate consultations with mediators instead.

"We have had consultations" with Qatari mediators and the chief negotiator for the United Nations and African Union, Djibril Bassole, said Ahmed Hussein Adam, spokesman for the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), the main rebel group in Darfur.

"The talks were constructive and transparent... We hope, among other things, to resolve questions of procedure before entering into direct political negotiations with the Sudanese government," he said.

A source in the Sudan government delegation confirmed to AFP that there would be "no direct negotiations on Sunday with rebel groups but only consultations with the mediators."

A source in the UN-AU mediation group, meanwhile, told AFP: "There is no real cancellation. We are working with the government and with the armed movements to get them working together towards an effective dialogue."

"This is still ongoing... and we will hope to find an appropriate format by which they can make progress."

The Sudanese delegation, which is headed by Ghazi Salaheddin, the government's pointman on Darfur, met Bassole on Saturday.

Darfur rebels had two rounds of talks with Khartoum government officials in Qatar -- in February and May 2009.

But other factions have refused to join the mooted talks in Doha and the JEM later said there is no point in taking part if there is no unity among the rebels.

Rebels and government officials were also due to meet in November but the talks failed to materialise.

Bassole said earlier this month that talks to settle the festering Darfur conflict would resume in Doha before the end of the month, with January 24 set as a date for direct talks.

The United Nations says up to 300,000 people have died and 2.7 million fled their homes since the ethnic minority rebels in Darfur first rose up against the Arab-dominated Sudan government in February 2003.

Khartoum says 10,000 people have been killed.

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