The African Union (AU) has said a move by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to indict Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for genocide and war crimes in Darfur was pouring "oil on the fire".
Chairman of the AU Commission Jean Ping met Mr Bashir and other officials in Khartoum and urged the UN Security Council to suspend the ICC investigation into the president to allow peace efforts to continue.
"While we are trying to extinguish the fire here with our troops, we don't understand that they chose that moment to put more oil on the fire," Mr Ping told reporters after the meeting.
The ICC chief prosecutor last month asked the court for an arrest warrant for Mr Bashir for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, saying his state apparatus was directly responsible for killing 35,000 people and indirectly for the deaths of at least 100,000 more in Sudan's remote west.
Some 9,500 mainly African troops are already deployed in a UN-AU peacekeeping effort (UNAMID), but UN bureaucracy and Sudanese delays have prevented the force from reaching its full strength of 26,000 troops and police.
AU Peace and Security Commissioner Ramtane Lamamra said the force could reach 80 per cent of its total by the end of 2009 if the international community showed goodwill towards the mission.
Regional powers worry that any indictment would cause problems for UNAMID and stall any peace process. But rights groups call the ICC move a blow against impunity.
Five years of war have brought humanitarian disaster to the western Sudan region, and campaigners accuse the world of failing to provide helicopters and other vital support for a struggling peacekeeping mission there.
The ICC's charter allows the Security Council to suspend any investigation or warrant for up to 12 months. Mr Ping said the UN should do this "as soon as possible."
"We think that this decision should be examined clearly because we are here in Africa and the troops who are here are Africans, those who are dying are Africans," he said.
"The rest of the world should help us in understanding the problems we are facing in the field."
Mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms in early 2003 accusing central government of neglect. Khartoum mobilised mostly Arab militia to quell the revolt but they now stand accused of a widespread campaign of terror, rape and murder.
Reuters