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All countries should avoid meeting the Sudanese president to help depose him and ensure his arrest on charges of genocide, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said on Tuesday.He also called on the international community to make the arrest of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir a condition for any negotiations with Sudan."We need all heads of state to say that if you commit genocide you cannot be part of the club," ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said, adding the presidents of France and South Africa were among those who had already refused to meet Bashir.The Hague-based tribunal on Monday issued a second arrest warrant for Bashir for the crime of genocide for his role in crimes in the Darfur region that have killed as many as 300,000 people since 2003. This follows war crimes charges issued last year."Because it's a genocide, even states who are not members of the ICC now have a legal obligation to do something," Moreno-Ocampo told Reuters.The new arrest warrant means the 1948 Genocide Convention can be invoked, Moreno-Ocampo said, including in states such as the U.S., Russia and China, and even Sudan itself."They have to be clear. I mean China, Russia, the U.S. making clear statements," Luis Moreno-Ocampo told reporters, referring to countries which have not signed up to the court.Since the ICC has no police force, it depends on national authorities and states that have signed up to the court to make arrests.The prosecutor said a Friday meeting of the United Nations Security Council was an opportunity for countries to make a stand against Bashir."We are asking for a robust political decision. If the security council members agree to stop this, they can stop it in one day."Khartoum has dismissed the latest arrest warrant, accusing the ICC of being part of a Western conspiracy trying to destabilise the country.Rebels in the region said the charges were a step in the right direction and urged nations to intervene to stop the genocide."They have to take measures. One of those measures should be to stop cooperating and recognising and dealing with the Bashir government," Ahmed Hussein Adam, spokesman for the Darfur rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), told Reuters.Moreno-Ocampo said he would like to see Bashir arrested in Sudan and that he would seek the toughest sentence."The maximum is life in prison and he would be a good candidate for that."(Reporting by Victoria Bryan; Additional reporting by Andrew Heavens in Khartoum; Editing by Jon Loades-Carter)(For more news on Reuters India, click http://in.reuters.com)
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