This angered Sudan, which said it would reject the deployment of non-African troops in Darfur and complained it had not been properly consulted about the Canadian plan.

Martin spokeswoman Melanie Gruer said Canada needed the approval of the African Union for the troops' deployment rather than that of Sudan.

"There is no change to the plan. We will send what we said we were going to send," she said.

"We consulted Khartoum as a courtesy. It's up to the African Union to get Sudan's approval."

An African Union force of more than 2,300 soldiers and hundreds of civilian police are deployed in Darfur to monitor a shaky ceasefire agreed to in April of last year between mostly non-Arab rebels and the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum.