United Nations ? The prosecutor of the world’s first permanent war crimes tribunal will seek an arrest warrant Monday charging Sudan’s president with crimes against humanity and genocide in Darfur, a move U.N. diplomats warned could bring a backlash from Sudan’s government.

U.N. officials and diplomats said the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court would seek an indictment charging Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir with orchestrating violence in Darfur that has left hundreds of thousands of people dead.

Sudan’s government reacted swiftly and angrily.

“If you indict our head of state, the symbol of our country, the symbol of our dignity, then the sky’s the limit for our reactions,” Sudan’s U.N. Ambassador Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamed told The Associated Press on Friday.

“We condemn it in the strongest of terms. It will have far-reaching, bad implications for the entire country.”

China’s U.N. Ambassador Wang Guangya, whose nation is an ally of Sudan, expressed concern that bringing charges against al-Bashir could jeopardize peace talks and put peacekeepers and humanitarian aid workers in Darfur at greater risk.

“It’s one of the implications we have to consider,” he said.

South Africa’s U.N. Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo also cautioned that Darfur’s embattled people could be left even less secure. “The debate about the balance between justice, peace and development is a very difficult one,” he said.

The court, based in The Hague, Netherlands, said the prosecutor will present evidence of war crimes in Darfur to judges Monday and one or more new suspects would be named. But court officials refused to identify any of the potential new suspects.

U.N. officials and diplomats said they expect lesser charges of helping orchestrate genocide and participating in crimes against humanity to be brought against Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Mohammed Taha. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

A spokesman for Sudan’s president dismissed the investigation and said his government refuses to hand over any suspects.