US: The UN Security Council was last night set to renew a mandate for peacekeepers in Darfur in a resolution that Washington criticised for raising concerns about moves to indict Sudan's president for genocide.
Most western powers agreed to wording that makes it clear the council is ready to discuss suspending any future International Criminal Court indictment of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for genocide in the interest of peace in Darfur.
Five years of war have brought humanitarian disaster to the western Sudanese region, and Darfur campaigners accused the world of failing to provide helicopters and other badly needed support for the struggling peacekeeping mission there.
Western diplomats said the resolution extending the mission would likely be approved when the council voted last night, but US criticism of a key paragraph in the British-drafted text, added to accommodate African concerns about the ICC, indicated that there was a possibility it might not pass unanimously.
Asked how Washington would vote, spokesman for the US mission to the United Nations Richard Grenell said: "The language on the ICC sends the wrong signal to a man who presided over genocide." He did not elaborate.
While Washington was unlikely to use its veto power to kill the resolution, which would jeopardise the entire peacekeeping mission, it could abstain. Diplomats on the council have said they wanted the vote to be unanimous to show that the council was undivided in support of peacekeepers in the line of fire.
The vote was postponed as council diplomats worked to persuade the Americans to vote yes.
Sudan's UN ambassador Abdalmahmoud Abdalhaleem said it was an "acceptable" text for Khartoum.
Nearly half the 15-member council had made a reference to the international court in the text a condition of renewing the peacekeeping mandate.
UN officials estimate at last 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been driven from their homes in Darfur since rebels took up arms in early 2003, accusing central government of neglect. Khartoum blames the western media for exaggerating the conflict and says 10,000 people have been killed.
Security in Darfur, an area the size of France where oil was discovered in 2005, has been deteriorating and tension has grown since the moves to indict Bashir.
The resolution expresses the council's deep concern at the insecurity, and the killing of aid workers. It also demanded an end to all attacks on civilians by both sides.
Yesterday, two courts condemned 22 Darfur rebels to death for their involvement in an unprecedented raid on the capital in May which killed more than 200 people.This brought the total to be hanged to 30. The Darfur rebel Justice and Equality Movement has threatened to retaliate.
The UN-African Union peacekeeping force, known as Unamid, has been struggling to stabilise the situation, but has only deployed some 9,500 troops and police out of a planned force of 26,000, due to both Khartoum's demands and UN bureaucracy.
Adding to the force's difficulties, troop-contributing countries have failed to provide badly-needed helicopters.
The UN security council resolution calls on member states to provide the helicopters and everything else Unamid needs.
The UN hopes to have 80 per cent of the mission deployed by year-end. The resolution urges both the UN and Sudan to do everything possible to make Unamid fully functional.