Since the court issued an international arrest warrant against al-Bashir in March, he has traveled outside Sudan several times without being arrested. But the president was a no-show at the U.N. General Assembly's high-level debate this year.

The international court has no police force and relies on countries to execute the arrest warrants, even those like the United States that haven't signed onto the court's charter, because even non-signers are obligated as U.N. members to cooperate.

The court's decision is "limiting the movement of the president," al-Bashir adviser Ghazi Salahuddin Atabani said in an Associated Press interview. "He has to study of course any particular (travel plan) on its own merits."

Atabani said al-Bashir would not give himself up to the court's jurisdiction.

"Give himself up? No way. No way. Because they have to convince us that there's a real case there. There's no real case. It's all politics," Atabani said. "If there is a case, it should be tried in Sudan."

Al-Bashir is the first sitting head of state to be charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity by the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal since it was established in 2002. The court accused him in March of orchestrating a campaign of murder, torture, rape and forced expulsions in Sudan's western Darfur region, but said there was insufficient evidence to merit charging him with genocide.

The Sudanese army said Sunday it has cleared several more areas of rebel control in North Darfur province ahead of peace talks to be held in the Qatari capital Doha in October. Rebels denied the government claims. The renewed fighting comes after peacekeepers in Darfur said the war there is largely over, citing a decline in fighting.

The Darfur conflict began in February 2003 when ethnic African rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated Sudanese government in Khartoum, claiming discrimination and neglect.

U.N. officials say the war has claimed at least 300,000 lives from violence, disease and displacement. They say some 2.7 million people were driven from their homes and at its height, in 2003-2005, it was called the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

Repeating long-held government claims, Atabani, the leader of Sudan's parliamentary majority and a senior member of al-Bashir's National Congress, called those numbers "guesswork."

"No one has employed scientific methodology in trying to assess the numbers," he said. "We believe the number is much, much less than that. We don't have our own figures of course, because we haven't conducted our own survey or our own study."

Atabani also disputed the U.S. assessment, by both the Bush and Obama administrations, that the conflict in Darfur has been a "genocide."

"Even the ICC ... has dropped the genocide charges against Mr. Bashir. So that shows you that the United States is isolated in its position," he said.

But Atabani said his government welcomes the approach taken by new U.S. special envoy Scott Gration as "conducive to producing results and also gaining the confidence of other parties."

Atabani also spoke for Sudan on Monday during the General Assembly's high-level debate, telling other nations that "nobody can be more keen on containing the bloodletting and achieving peace than the Sudanese themselves."

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon has called for an end to the violence and tribal conflict ahead of scheduled national elections and a referendum over the next two years. Under the terms of a peace agreement, elections are scheduled to take place in April 2010.

U.S. Deputy Ambassador Rosemary DiCarlo told the U.N. Security Council last week that "the extent to which Darfuris will be able to participate meaningfully in the voting is a real concern."

DiCarlo also called the plight of civilians in Darfur "deeply troubling," particularly the prevalence of sexual violence against women.

"No discussion of humanitarian relief can fail to mention the government of Sudan's March 4 expulsion of humanitarian organizations," she added. "Through the considerable efforts of the United Nations and the international community, the humanitarian crisis was averted."

Atabani, in the interview, acknowledged the challenges.

"We envisage difficulties in the elections _ of course there are areas which are still insecure," he said. "But generally since the independence of Sudan, we haven't had a single election where everything was perfect. We always had security problems."