Sudan Plays Down Reports Of Bashir Arrest Decision

Sudan sought to play down reports that International Criminal Court judges had decided to indict its president for war crimes in Darfur, saying it was pressing ahead with diplomatic efforts to postpone the move.

United Nations diplomats and officials told Reuters late on Wednesday the global court's judges had decided to issue an arrest warrant for President Omar Hassan al-Bashir.

Sudan's foreign ministry said it had not received any notification from the court in The Hague, which has not so far publicly announced a decision or given details of what charges Bashir might face.

"We must wait for the announcement from the court," said Ali al-Sadig, spokesman for Sudan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

"The African Union and Arab League delegations are still working. China and Russia are also working with us. It is too early to talk about the results of this pressure ... We will react when the decision comes."

China, the African Union and the Arab League have all warned an indictment of Bashir could destabilise the region, worsen the conflict in Darfur and threaten a troubled peace deal between north Sudan and the semi-autonomous south.

Their diplomats have been trying to build support for a one-year postponement of the court's action, which is within the power of the U.N. Security Council.

"Our consistent stance has been that we hope the International Criminal Court's actions are helpful for Sudan's stability and the appropriate resolution of the Darfur problem," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said. China is a permanent Security Council member.

STARVATION AND DISEASE

There was no sign of a reaction to the reports of an arrest warrant on the streets of Khartoum on Thursday and the story did not appear in local media.

Last year, chief ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo asked the court's judges to indict Bashir for orchestrating what he described as a campaign of genocide in Sudan's western Darfur region, starting in 2003. Ocampo said this had killed some 35,000 people outright and at least 100,000 more through starvation and disease.

Khartoum rejects the term genocide and says 10,000 people died in the conflict.

U.N. officials in New York said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had not been notified by the ICC of its decision, although they were expecting news before the end of the month.

The U.N. has a mission in Sudan and a separate UNAMID peacekeeping force in Darfur, jointly run by the African Union.

UNAMID spokesman Noureddine Mezni said the force had also not been informed.

"We have a specific, separate mandate to keep the peace in Darfur. We have nothing to do with the ICC," he said.

Some analysts have warned an indictment could undermine the already-troubled 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended more than two decades of civil war between north and south Sudan.

The Sudan People's Liberation Movement, the dominant party in the south which joined a coalition government with Bashir under the accord, has so far maintained an ambiguous stance, saying Khartoum should cooperate with the global court without spelling out how.

SPLM Spokesman Yien Matthew said senior party members would meet soon to clarify their position. "The SPLM stands by justice wherever it is," he added.