The UN Security Council is set to renew a mandate for peacekeepers in Darfur tonight 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 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 votes tonight 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 jeopardize 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 by two hours as council diplomats worked to persuade the Americans to vote yes.
Sudan's UN mbassador Abdalmahmoud Abdalhaleem said yesterday 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.
REUTERS