Cairo - The Arab League announced Saturday that its foreign
ministers in an emergency meeting agreed on a plan to defuse the
crisis between Sudan and the International Criminal Court (ICC), but
said details of the plan would be revealed in the next days.
Speaking after the seven-hour meeting, the league's Secretary-
General Amr Mussa said that a plan had been agreed to solve the
crisis that 'could be really destabilizing.'
The crisis erupted when ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo
asked the court on Monday in The Hague to issue an arrest warrant for
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on suspicion of genocide, war
crimes and crimes against humanity.
Mussa said that details of the plan would be disclosed after his
scheduled talks with al-Bashir on Sunday in Khartoum and
consultations with the African Union, in which Sudan is a member.
'We will announce what we have agreed after the Khartoum talks on
Sunday or in the next days,' Mussa told reporters.
In their meeting Saturday in the Arab League's Cairo headquarters,
the foreign ministers discussed the legal and political aspects of
the ICC move.
The ICC prosecutor accused al-Bashir of waging a campaign of
genocide against three Darfur tribes, which has claimed the lives of
hundreds of thousands and displaced about 2.5 million people from
their homes in the western Sudanese province.
The ICC is expected to rule in October or November whether to
issue the warrant.
'We have three months before a decision is taken by the court. We
have to move fast in consultation with the African Union and Sudan,'
Mussa said.
Arab countries disagree with the ICC move and see it as
'imbalanced,' he said.
'Ocampo's decision is not balanced as it does not take into
consideration violations committed by rebel movements in Darfur,' he
said.
Mussa said the crisis will not be solved by screaming, chants or
condemnations, in reference to the emotional rhetoric adopted by al-
Bashir's regime and demonstrations that have been staged in Khartoum
in response to the ICC move.
Earlier, Arab diplomats close to the foreign ministers said that
the Arab League ministers were expected to call on the UN Security
Council to halt the ICC move for a year, in order to give the various
parties to the Darfur conflict more time to reach a solution.
It was the Security Council that referred the Darfur file to the
ICC and has the power to halt the court move, the diplomats said.
The Security Council will have a role that will come in time after
various moves are undertaken in consultation between the Arab League,
the African Union and Sudan, Mussa said. He did not disclose the
nature of those moves.
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