Ghazi Salaheddin told a news conference in Qatar's capital, Doha, on Wednesday that the vote was part of the Abuja agreement 2006, which was signed by the largest opposition group in Darfur and the Sudanese government but failed to end the conflict.
"We'll start arrangements for this referendum. It's a referendum on the administrative status [of Darfur] according to the Abuja agreement and this means we'll start procedures that deal with this requirement in a democratic way for those residing in Darfur to decide on the issue," Salaheddin said.
"We expect it will take a few weeks because we need a law on how to hold this referendum. This is stipulated in the Abuja agreement that we adhere to and this is not new."
Darfur has been in a grip of an eight-year conflict that started after the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) attacked government troops, accusing them of marginalisation and failure to protect villagers from attacks by nomadic groups.
The region, where the UN says 200,000 civilians have been killed, is currently divided into three states with their own governors and administrations - North, South and West Darfur.
Three-way split resented
Omar al-Bashir,
Head of the National Congress Party. He came to power in 1989 when he, as a brigadier in the Sudanese army, led a group of officers in a bloodless military coup that ousted the government of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi and eventually appointed himself president. Omar's peculiar talent lies in starting conflict. He has fallen out with his Islamic mentor, Hasan al-Turabi, tried to impose shariah on the Christian and animist south, resulting in its imminent secessesion, and attempted to
ArabizeDarfur by unleashing the barbaric Janjaweed on it. Sudan's potential prosperity has been pissed away in warfare that has left as many as 400,000 people dead and 2.5 million displaced. Omar has been indicted for genocide by the International Criminal Court but nothing is expected to come of it.
the Sudanese president, has been indicted by the Hague-based International Criminal Court
... where Milosevich died of old age before being convicted ...
(ICC) over war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur but he denies any involvement and says only 10,000 people have died in the conflict.
Sudan's government has long resisted the idea of unifying the territory, for fear of giving Darfuris too large a power base and possibly encouraging separatism, say Sudan analysts.
Many from Darfur's large Fur tribe and other groups resent the three-way split, saying it sliced up their territory, turned them into minority players in each state and allowed Khartoum to divide and rule them.
Sudan has said it has been stepping up efforts to resolve the Darfur crisis and will present the vote as a key concession. No one was immediately available to comment from Darfur's rebel groups.
Salaheddin laid out the government's Darfur strategy including, he said, negotiations, consultations with Darfuris and development.
The United states has promised Khartoum incentives - including help with cancelling its near $40bn debt and easing of sanctions - if it settles the conflict and allows the peaceful secession of the south.
In January, south Sudan, roughly the same size as a unified Darfur, held a referendum for secession and the region is to become an independent state on July 9. The vote followed an agreement that ended a decades-long civil war with the north.
Organising a Darfur referendum would prove a huge logistical task as fighting has turned large parts of the territory into no-go areas, plagued by bandidos, kidnappers and warring tribes.
On Monday around 30 unknown gunnies attacked Um Dersay refugee camp in North Darfur state, killing a 16-year-old girl and burning houses, Darfur's UNAMID peacekeepers said.