Defiant Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir ignored the international arrest warrant against him when he paid a brief visit to his Eritrean ally on Monday.

"It is a one-day visit, it's a very normal visit from one president to another. He is responding to an invitation by President Issaias Afeworki," Ali Abdu told AFP by phone from Asmara.

The Eritrean president had invited Beshir on 11 March to express solidarity with the Sudanese president, seven days after the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued its warrant accusing Beshir of crimes against humanity and war crimes in the western Sudanese region of Darfur.

"The drama being orchestrated by the so-called ICC amply demonstrates the anti-people stance and defamatory conspiracy on the part of external forces," the Eritrean government had said in its invitation.

"Eritrea sees the decision by the ICC as irresponsible and as an insult to the intelligence of African countries," Abdu said on Monday.

The two presidents discussed bilateral and regional issues, he added without elaborating.

Like Sudan, the government in Asmara has frosty ties with Western states, notably the United States.

Many African and Arab states along with key ally China have condemned the ICC move and called for the warrant to be suspended.

Beshir faces five counts of crimes against humanity and two of war crimes. He is the first sitting president to be issued with a warrant by the ICC.

With an international arrest warrant hanging over his head, Beshir's visit to Eritrea had not been announced in the Sudanese media, nor even to those close to the government.

But his top aide, Nafie Ali Nafie, insisted that Beshir would continue to travel on the continent.

"President Beshir will continue to visit African nations," he said after Beshir's plane touched down in Khartoum, late on Monday.

"Each invitation which comes to the president will be studied carefully because we are not in a normal situation at the moment. They will be considered from a security point of view," Sudanese Foreign Minister Deng Alor told reporters at Khartoum airport.

On Sunday, Sudanese media said the country's highest religious authority, the Committee of Muslim Scholars, has issued a fatwa urging Beshir not to travel to the 29 to 30 March Arab summit in Doha.

"It is inadmissible for the president of the republic to take part in the Arab League summit in Qatar under current conditions while the enemies of God and of the nation are creeping around," the text said.

"Because you are the symbol and the guardian of the nation... we think that the conditions are not right (to attend the summit) and that this task can be carried out by persons other than yourself," the fatwa said.

The ICC does not have a police force and therefore calls on signatory states to implement warrants.

Eritrea has not ratified the Rome Statute which set up the court, although as a member of the United Nations it is urged to co-operate with the court.

Besides the possibility of his arrest in Qatar, some officials in Sudan fear that Beshir's presidential jet could be intercepted by other states once out of Sudanese airspace.

According to some Sudanese commentators, appeals for Beshir not to travel offer the president a face-saving way out of the ICC bind.

The United Nations says 300 000 people have died in the six-year-long conflict between Darfur's ethnic minority rebels and the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum, which puts the figure at only 10 000.

An estimated 2.7 million people more have fled their homes.

AFP