KHARTOUM (AFP) - The Red Cross on Monday expressed hope of expanding its aid effort in Sudan, where the government has severely restricted foreign relief agencies in two states where war began last year.

During a five-day visit, the director-general of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Yves Daccord, held talks on the humanitarian situation in Darfur as well as in Blue Nile and South Kordofan states, the Geneva-based organisation said in a statement.

Daccord "discussed the ICRC's offer to bring aid to all affected, including detainees," it said.

He met with Sudanese officials including Social Welfare Minister Amira al-Fadel Mohamed.

"I am hopeful that in the near future we will be able to expand our activities in the affected regions in accordance with our mandate under international humanitarian law and with the principles of independence, impartiality and neutrality," Daccord said, without elaborating.

The government has cited security concerns in severely restricting foreign aid organisations within South Kordofan and Blue Nile, where fighting erupted several months ago between the Sudan Armed Forces and ethnic rebels once allied to insurgents who now rule in South Sudan.

The South gained independence from Khartoum last July after decades of civil war.

Food shortages would become critical without substantial aid deliveries into Sudan's war-torn southern states by March, the US ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, last week.

She accused the Khartoum government of "a deliberate policy" of blocking aid agencies from reaching civilians in the conflict zones, where the UN estimates that more than 500,000 people have been displaced or severely affected.

Sudan's UN ambassador accused international aid workers of using UN flights to carry arms and ammunition for the rebels -- a claim for which the UN's top humanitarian official said there was "no evidence."

Even before the conflict, the UN's World Food Programme was assisting more than 400,000 people annually during the mid-year "lean season" in South Kordofan, Amor Almagro, a WFP spokeswoman, told AFP.

If people have not been able to plant because of the conflict, "surely the situation is worse," Almagro said.

"You need to (have) access to be able to assess the situation," she added.

A separate conflict began nine years ago in Sudan's Western region of Darfur, where the UN says an estimated 1.9 million people are still displaced.

The ICRC in Sudan cooperates with the Sudanese Red Crescent Society to ensure that people affected by armed conflict and other violence receive emergency aid and protection under international humanitarian law.

The ICRC provides water, food, shelter and medical care, and re-establishes contact between people separated by fighting.