Sudan was told to hand over its president to face charges of "war crimes" in Darfur as the International Criminal Court issued its first ever arrest warrant Wednesday against a sitting head of state. But Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir's government immediately dismissed the move as thousands of Sudanese took to the streets to vent their anger while his allies, including the African Union and Russia, warned it could undermine peace.

Indeed, the International Criminal Court issued Wednesday an arrest warrant for Sudan's President Omar al-Beshir for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur, an ICC spokeswoman said. But the warrant did not include genocide charges, which had also been requested by prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, court spokeswoman
Laurence Blairon told journalists at the seat of the court in The Hague.

"Today, pre-trial chamber one of the International Criminal Court ... issued a warrant for the president of Sudan for war crimes and crimes against humanity," Blairon said. She said the warrant listed seven counts -- five of crimes against humanity and two of war crimes. They included the crimes of murder, extermination, forcible transfer, torture, rape, intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population and pillaging.

Moreno-Ocampo accuses Beshir of having personally instructed his forces to annihilate three ethnic groups -- the Fur, the Masalit and the Zaghawa. The prosecutor says 2.7 million people have been uprooted from their homes, of whom 100,000 died of causes related to their displacement, such as starvation.

Moreno-Ocampo said Sudan was legally obliged to enforce the warrant while Blairon said Khartoum could be referred to the UN Security Council if it failed to comply. "The government of the Sudan is obliged under international law to execute the warrant of arrest on its territory," Moreno-Ocampo, who first asked the court to issue an arrest warrant for Beshir last year, told reporters. The court's registrar, Silvana Arbia, said a request for Beshir's arrest would be transmitted "immediately" to Khartoum.

However, and although there was no immediate response from Beshir, his justice minister said Khartoum would not cooperate with the court. "We will not deal with this court," Abdel Basit Sabdarat told Al-Jazeera television. "It has no jurisdiction, it is a political decision." Beshir himself had said on Tuesday that any warrant would "not be worth the ink" it was written with.

For his part, Sudanese deputy foreign minister Ali Ahmed Karti told reporters in Cairo that al-Beshir will attend the Arab summit due to be held in Doha later this month despite the international arrest warrant against him.

Meanwhile, thousands of Sudanese protestors took to the streets of the capital Khartoum on Wednesday minutes after the announcement. They struck a note of defiance with banner-waving crowds massing on the banks of the Nile, chanting "We love you President Beshir." "We will protect President Beshir with every drop of our blood," chanted another group of demonstrators near Khartoum University. Security was beefed up around foreign embassies amid fear of reprisals by Beshir supporters, while diplomats urged expatriates to avoid public places.

The African Union, which has long argued against any warrant being issued, said it could strike a fatal blow to faltering efforts to bring peace to Darfur. "The AU's position is that we support the fight against impunity, we cannot let crime perpetrators go unpunished," AU commission chairman Jean Ping said. "But we say that peace and justice should not collide, that the need for justice should not override the need for peace." For his part, the Arab League chief Amr Mussa said the pan-Arab body was "very disturbed" by the International Criminal Court's decision to issue an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's envoy for Sudan, Mikhail Margelov, also criticized the move for creating "a dangerous precedent".

Uganda's Foreign Minisiter Sam Kutesa said in turn that Uganda believes the arrest warrant against Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir could be suspended. "We believe the arrest warrant can be suspended in order to balance getting rid of impunity and getting a sustainable peace in Darfur," Kutesa told reporters after a meeting of Commonwealth ministers.

He said Uganda supported the position of the African Union (AU), which warned that the warrant issued by the International Criminal Court Wednesday could threaten the already ailing peace process in Sudan. Uganda believes "a balance must be struck" on the Beshir issue, Kutesa said in brief comments, adding that the AU had launched its own investigation into Beshir.

Egypt also called on the ICC to delay its arrest warrant for Beshir for war crimes in Darfur, the official MENA news agency said. Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit "calls on the UN Security Council to convene an emergency meeting... with the aim of taking a decision calling for the activation of article 16 of the court's constitution to delay the indictment," MENA reported. It said Egypt was "greatly disturbed" by the warrant against Beshir and called on the Security Council to "assume its responsibility towards maintaining peace and security in Sudan."

Meanwhile, the US State Department called for "restraint" from all involved. "The United States believes that those who have committed atrocities should be brought to justice as the ICC process continues," State Department spokesman Robert Wood said. "We urge restraint on the part of all parties including the government of Sudan. Further violence against civilian Sudanese or foreign interests must be avoided and will not be tolerated."

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said: "We deeply regret that the (Sudanese) government has not taken these allegations seriously or engaged with the court, and we repeat today our call for its cooperation."

In Paris, a French foreign ministry spokesman said: "France reiterates its support for international criminal justice. France urges Sudan to cooperate fully with the ICC immediately and to implement decisions taken by the judges."

German Foreign Minister Frank Walter Steinmeier said in a statement "I call on Sudan to respect the decision of the ICC and react in a considered way. That means respecting international rules on the protection of foreign NGO missions."