UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Wednesday Sudan had made little progress in curbing marauding militias in the Darfur region but diplomats said sanctions against Khartoum were unlikely.

Annan spoke as his special representative in Khartoum, Dutchman Jan Pronk, briefed the 15-member Security Council on reports that Arab militia, called Janjaweed, were continuing to terrorize African villagers in Sudan’s west. The 15-month conflict has killed at least 30,000 people, forced villagers into concentration-camp type compounds and left 2 million people without enough food and medicine.

“There have been encouraging steps on the humanitarian front,” Annan said at a news conference. “But there has been little progress on human rights and I regret to say there are continuing reports of attacks by the Janjaweed militia.”

Sudan, in an agreement with Annan two weeks ago, pledged to protect displaced civilians, disarm the Janjaweed and other armed groups, suspend visa and travel restrictions on relief workers, allow African Union human rights monitors and punish those responsible for atrocities. Pronk, who has helped organize a monitoring system for Darfur, was blunt, saying there was “no progress whatsoever as far as the security of the people themselves is concerned.”

But Annan said he could not predict how long Sudan would have before the U.N. Security Council took concrete action.

“It’s going to be a judgment call rather than an artificial deadline but the urgency is there and the Sudanese government doesn’t have forever,” he said. ...

“Any discussion of intervention in Sudan would be looked at very carefully by governments and I am not sure how quickly and how enthusiastically one would get support for that initiative. We have to be very clear on that,” Annan said.