Sudan expelled the Canadian and European Union envoys from the country Thursday for "meddling in its affairs," according to the state news agency.

Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs has confirmed that Nuala Lawlor, the charge d'affaires in Sudan, has been asked to leave.

"We have asked the Sudanese authorities why they have expelled her," Foreign Affairs spokesperson Rodney Moore told CTV.ca Thursday.

"In the finest example of Canadian diplomacy, she has stood up for freedom, democracy, and the rule of law in Sudan."

Meanwhile, the EU has confirmed that its diplomat Kent Degerfelt was also asked to leave.

Despite the expulsions, Sudan's Foreign Ministry told the envoys that "Sudan is keen to maintain the relation of cooperation linking it with the European Commission and with Canada," spokesperson Ali Al Sadeq told The Associated Press.

"This incident should not hamper the relations between the Sudan and both the EC and Canada," he added.

No specific details have been given by the Sudanese government as to why Lawlor and Degerfelt were expelled. But Sudan's turbulent Darfur region has been the focus of international concern since 2003, when ethnic African rebels began fighting against the country's Arab-dominated central government.

The government is accused of retaliating with the brutal janjaweed militias, blamed for terrible atrocities against Darfur's rebels.

The conflict has displaced more than 2.5 million people and more than 200,000 have died.

Sudan's state news agency quoted a government spokesperson saying the envoys were "involved in activities that constitute an intervention into the internal affairs of the Sudan, a matter that contradict their diplomatic duties and mission."

Payam Akhavan, a law professor at McGill University and a former U.N. war crimes prosecutor, said the expulsions were likely part of a larger political strategy.

"I really think this is part of a broader diplomatic game of portraying the Western presence in Sudan -- whether diplomatic or otherwise -- as a conspiracy, as meddling in Sudan's internal affairs," he told CTV Newsnet.

John Thompson, president of the Toronto-based Mackenzie Institute which studies political instability and terrorism, told The Canadian Press the envoys were likely just doing their jobs.

"For countries like Sudan, they (expel diplomats) because the diplomat is becoming effective, getting close to things and looking at things they don't want people to pay attention to," he said. "In this case it is a sordid little dictatorship worried about diplomats actually doing effective work."

He added that for both envoys, "it is a tremendous professional compliment."

With files from The Associated Press