Sudan's government said Saturday that its peace accord with Darfur's main insurgent group allows it to welcome U.N. peacekeepers to the troubled region, as mediators worked to persuade the rest of the fractured rebel movement to join the process. The peace agreement, reached Friday in Abuja with one branch of the Sudan Liberation Army after two years of sporadic negotiations, aims to end ethnic bloodshed that has killed at least 180,000 people in three years and left some 2 million displaced. The suggestion that it could pave the way for a deployment of U.N. peacekeepers overturns previous rejections by Khartoum, which so far has allowed only African Union peacekeepers on the ground. The underfunded African forces have largely been ineffective in stopping atrocities and re-establishing security, leaving tens of thousands of refugees in camps with little food or water.Decades of low-level tribal clashes over land and water in Darfur, a vast region about the size of France, erupted into large-scale violence in early 2003 with rebels demanding regional autonomy. The government is accused of responding by unleashing Janjaweed militias upon civilians, a charge Sudan denies. The peace deal calls for a cease-fire, disarmament of goverment-linked militias, the integration of thousands of rebel fighters into Sudan's armed forces and a protection force for civilians in the immediate aftermath of the war.