CAIRO: The Arab League said yesterday it would hold crisis talks on Sudan after the media reported that the International Criminal Court may seek Sudanese President Omar Bashir’s arrest. The Cairo-based League received “an official from the Sudanese government and examined the latest developments in the situation between Sudan and the ICC,” Hisham Yussef, secretary-general Amr Moussa’s chief of staff, told reporters.

Earlier, Sudanese Ambassador to Egypt Abdel Moneim Mabruk told Egypt’s official MENA news agency that his country had made a request to Moussa to hold crisis talks.

“The meeting will take place,” Yussef said, adding that no date had yet been set.

“Amr Moussa is in Paris and is consulting with Arab foreign ministers for an extraordinary meeting of the council of foreign ministers,” Arab League spokesman Abdel-Alim Al-Abyad said. The officials are in France for a summit of European Union and Mediterranean leaders. The call followed reports that ICC prosecutors would seek Bashir’s arrest as they open a case covering crimes committed in the war-town western Sudanese region of Darfur over the past five years.

But in Addis Ababa, the African Union warned that ICC plans to prosecute Bashir could jeopardize peace efforts in Darfur.

After a meeting in the Ethiopian capital, the body’s Peace and Security Council “expressed its strong conviction that the search for justice should be pursued in a way that does not impede or jeopardize efforts aimed at promoting lasting peace.”

The Council said it had been briefed on the ICC’s plans on Friday by the court’s deputy prosecutor, and “reiterated the AU’s concern over the misuse of indictments against African leaders.” It said the UN Security Council itself, in a March 2005 resolution, had “emphasized the need to promote healing and reconciliation” in the region.

ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo announced Thursday that he would unveil a new case on Darfur and name suspects tomorrow.

US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack on Friday confirmed newspaper reports that ICC prosecutors would seek an arrest warrant for Bashir. That would mark the first-ever bid by the ICC, based in The Hague, to charge a sitting head of state.

The Sudanese government reacted angrily to the news, with State Minister for Foreign Affairs Al-Samani Al-Wasila saying that any decision about the president could “destroy the peace process.” Sudan rejects the court’s jurisdiction and refuses to surrender two war crimes suspects already named.