With the UN Security Council deadlocked over key issues in Sudan, the United States on Tuesday announced it would put forward three separate UN resolutions to tackle the Darfur crisis.
After weeks of stalemate on potential war crimes trials and sanctions, the United States is proposing different resolutions on both issues as well as a third to immediately approve a UN peacekeeping force in Sudan.
"We were unable to come to agreement on an omnibus resolution, so in our view the only way to proceed ... was to split up the three," US deputy UN ambassador Anne Patterson told reporters.
"There are still differences that we need to resolve," Patterson said.
Council members agree on UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's request to send more than 10,000 peacekeepers to monitor a north-south peace accord signed in January that ended 21 years of civil war.
But there are fears that the separate crisis in Sudan's troubled western Darfur region, where a rebel uprising, which started two years ago, has led to an estimated 180,000 dead, could derail the north-south peace.
Despite those concerns, the council has been at loggerheads over where to hold any trials for suspected war crimes that have been committed in Darfur as well as whether to impose sanctions on individuals.
Most council members favour referring war crimes suspects to the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague, the world's first permanent tribunal for crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes.
Yet the administration of US President George W. Bush opposes the ICC over fears that US citizens could be the target of lawsuits politically motivated by opposition to US policies.
Council members Algeria, China and Russia have meanwhile come out against US-proposed sanctions -- a travel ban and assets freeze -- on individuals suspected of jeopardising the peace and committing human rights abuses.
The stand-off has highlighted the issue of political horse-trading at the United Nations -- especially since Jan Egeland, the UN's top humanitarian official, estimated that 10,000 people are dying in Darfur each month.
Rights groups in particular have criticised the United States over its stance on the ICC, claiming that its position is effectively blocking attempts to bring the guilty in Darfur to justice.
But Algeria and China have also said they have reservations about an ICC referral.
"We're very much behind accountability. It's obviously a central part of our strategy in Sudan," Patterson said, calling the draft resolution on war crimes a "placeholder" measure.
She said that resolution would put forward the option of ICC referral, a US proposal for a special war crimes court based in Tanzania, and a Nigerian suggestion for an African Union-backed court.
"The resolution makes no judgement as to which would be preferable but simply enables discussions to continue until a decision is reached," Patterson said. But the non-ICC measures have been mostly rejected by council members.
Council diplomats on Tuesday still held out the possibility of counter-proposing an omnibus resolution to address all three issues this week.
The council has already passed two one-week extensions to the mandate of the current UN mission in Sudan, which is on the ground to help prepare the arrival of the UN peacekeeping force. The latest mandate expires on Thursday.