Indonesia has joined the African Union and the Arab League in urging the UN Security Council to suspend the International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation of the Sudanese President for alleged genocide and war crimes.
The court's charter allows for the council to suspend investigation or issuance of warrants for up to 12 months.
On Wednesday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah said moves by the ICC to indict President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, and the request for an arrest warrant, would jeopardize the ongoing peace process in Sudan's conflict-torn region of Darfur.
"The arrest warrant would be counterproductive to the peace process between north and south Sudan. The enforcement of justice for human rights crimes should be perceived within a holistic context. There should be a balance between the promotion of justice and creation of peace," he said.
Indonesia is currently an elected council member until the end of the year.
ICC chief prosecutor Luis Oreno-Ocampo last month accused the Sudanese leader of orchestrating a campaign of genocide, killing 35,000 people outright, and of being responsible for the deaths of at least 100,000 more in Sudan's remote west over the past five years.
North and south Sudan have been ravaged by conflict between the two ruling parties -- the National Congress Party and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement -- with each claiming the oil-rich area of Abyei, which straddles their common border.
A peace accord in 2005 and a 10,000-strong UN mission deployed in the volatile region have failed to prevent sporadic violent incidents from occurring between the two powers.
"The ICC, as an independent body, reserves the jurisdiction to indict and arrest people proven to be guilty of the crimes they are charged with," said Bantarto Bandoro, an international relations analyst at the University of Indonesia.
"However, the ICC should also take into account the adverse political impact if the arrest warrant for the Sudanese president is issued amid the fragile peace process there."
Bashir's regime is lobbying the Security Council to freeze possible legal proceedings should ICC judges issue an arrest warrant.
The council has yet to respond.
Last week it approved a resolution extending the mandate of UN-African Union peacekeepers in Darfur, UNAMID, for another year.
UNAMID has only deployed 9,500 out of a planned total of 26,000 troops due to the many demands about its composition.
Indonesia has delayed sending its peacekeepers to Darfur because of recent security exacerbations.
Bashir seized power in a 1989 coup that overthrew a democratically elected government. He was first declared elected president in a 1996 poll widely denounced as fraudulent.
