The one-day tripartite security dialogue held at Vienna's Hofburg Palace brought together U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini and Russian presidential aide Victor Petrovich Ivanov.

Austrian Interior Minister Liese Prokop, whose country currently holds the EU's rotating presidency, as well as representatives of Finland, Germany, Portugal and Slovenia also attended the meeting.

"Global threats such as terrorism, organized crime, drug trafficking and trafficking in human beings or illegal migration call for global responses," said Liese Prokop, also chairwoman of the meeting.

She stressed that the three parties defined four key principles and specific themes for future cooperation, which were "the willingness to work together to tackle common threats, the objective of making internal security a priority in external relations between the participating countries, joint preparation of concrete solutions in the fight against terrorism, crime and illegal migration and the mobilization of joint resources to achieve common goals in the field of security."

"Participants noted the importance of today's meeting which enabled for the first time ministers responsible for home affairs from the EU, the Russian Federation and the United States to have an open exchange of views in relation to security issues," said a declaration released after the joint press conference.

The small Justice and Equality Movement was the first to walk out overnight. Abdel Wahid Nur, of a faction of the main rebel Sudan Liberation Army, followed before dawn Friday saying: "We are not going to sign."

But another faction, led by Nur's rival Minni Minnawi, said it was willing to sign despite reservations believed linked to rejected rebel demands for Sudan to have a vice president from Darfur, said AU spokesman Noureddine Mezni. The issue of the vice presidency was believed the main reason the other factions had rejected a deal.

Mezni also said the Minnawi faction was willing to resume direct talks with the government; the parties have been negotiating through intermediaries in recent days.

Days of negotiations culminated in an all-night session with the African Union, rebels and envoys from the United States, Britain, the European Union and the Arab League. Deadlines have been extended twice since Sunday and Thursday's session went five hours beyond the midnight time limit.

Sudan's government was not involved because it already had agreed to the initial proposal drafted by AU mediators, and negotiators were waiting for the rebels to agree.

"These are all opportunities, but it requires leadership on the part of the movement that, frankly, is in question," U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick told reporters.

The last-ditch diplomatic efforts appeared doomed to failure, but Denis Sassou-Nguesso, president of the Republic of Congo and current head of the 53-nation African Union, said "It has not yet ended."

Annan reminded world leaders that at September's U.N. World Summit they had agreed that if a state could not protect its citizens - or was the perpetrator of violence - "the international community, through the (Security) Council, has to take action, and, if need by, by force." He spoke in an interview on "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" on PBS television.

The time had come to redeem that pledge, said Annan. The United States has accused Sudan's government of genocide in Darfur, while the U.N. has called the conflict the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

The Darfur rebels earlier had cautiously welcomed U.S.-drafted proposals to salvage the peace agreement.

Four pages of last-ditch revisions to the 85-page peace plan drawn up by African Union mediators offered concessions to the rebels on integrating fighters into the Sudan armed forces, compensation for war victims and power-sharing.

But as the session went well beyond the deadline, it became clear the rebels were unhappy.

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.

Sudan's government has shown increasing flexibility since the United States and Britain sent top envoys to the talks, indicating Wednesday that it could accept the U.S.-drafted changes.

"We hope that the Americans' suggestion will be agreed upon," government spokesman Abdulrahman Zuma told the AP.

Revisions to the peace plan made available to AP called for 4,000 rebels to be integrated into Sudan's armed forces and another 1,000 into the police force. In addition, 3,000 rebels would be given training and education at military colleges. The initial proposal mentioned no figures.

The new deal would give the rebels 33 percent of all newly integrated battalions nationwide, and 50 percent in areas to be agreed, notably Darfur.

It also called for a speedy disarmament of the Janjaweed militia that is accused of some of the worst atrocities in Darfur - an issue Zuma said Khartoum was willing to agree to. The initial proposal was for the militia to be confined to barracks.

Other significant changes included giving the rebels 70 percent of all legislators' seats in the three Darfurian provinces. It would be a major concession from Sudan's government but still does not meet rebel demands for the second vice presidency instead of the proposed special adviser to the president, which would be the No. 4 instead of No. 3 position in the Khartoum government hierarchy.

"A possible demand for transferring Zacarias Moussaoui could be looked at within this framework," Foreign Ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei said at an electronic press briefing.

"But in any case, we have to wait for the American justice system to provide a definitive sentence and to define the conditions of the sentence," he added.

Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy later said in a statement that he had instructed the French embassy in Washington to "remain very attentive to the situation of Zacarias Moussaoui."

He made no comment about the verdict and did not mention the possibility of repatriating him.

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales declined to say whether Moussaoui could be extradited to France.

"I don't think it's appropriate at this time to comment on that," he told a news conference in Vienna on Thursday after talks with European Union and Russian counterparts on security cooperation.

"Obviously there's been no formal request made, and with respect to a request by the French government, we would of course consider it at that time," he said.

The jury found Moussaoui's actions had not resulted in the deaths of about 3,000 people on September 11 -- a central part of the government's argument that he should face the death penalty.

Moussaoui's mother, Aisha el Wafi, said her son would be living like a "rat in a hole" and accused France of siding with the United States during the trial.

"I feel there is a part of me that is dead, buried with my son who will be buried for the rest of his life at the age of 37 for things he hasn't done," she told a news conference in Paris.

"The whole world knows it now. France knows it too but France prefers to please the Americans anyway."

France provided information about Moussaoui to the United States on condition that it could not be used in a sentence leading to the death penalty, which it opposes.