ISTANBUL, August 19, 2008 (AFP) - A top Sudanese diplomat said Tuesday his country would continue to defy the International Criminal Court as President Omar al-Beshir, named as a possible war crimes suspect in Darfur, attended a summit of African leaders in Turkey.

Beshir's visit to Istanbul for the two-day Turkey-Africa Cooperation Summit is his first trip abroad since ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo asked the court for his arrest on 10 counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in the war-wracked region of Darfur.

'The president can go everywhere and we are not afraid of anything... This ICC is ridiculous,' Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem, Sudanese ambassador to the United Nations, told reporters as the summit began in a historic Ottoman palace on the shores of the Bosphorus Strait.

Asked how Sudan will act if the court abides by the prosecutor's demand, Abdalhaleem said: 'We will not show any respect to it. We will just ignore it and disregard it.'

Earlier Tuesday, Turkish President Abdullah Gul met Beshir in bilateral talks during which he urged the Sudanese leader to end the 'humanitarian tragedy' in Darfur, a Turkish diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP.

Beshir responded that his government was not the sole party responsible for the conflict, the diplomat said.

Abdalhaleem, meanwhile, said that the two leaders did not discuss the move to have Beshir arrested.

Sudan flatly refuses any recognition of or dealings with the ICC, and has launched a diplomatic campaign to freeze any proceedings against Beshir.

Many African and Arab states have also called on the court not to interfere in Darfur, saying its efforts to prosecute war crimes could harm efforts to bring peace to the troubled region.

The US-based Human Rights watch has criticized Turkey for choosing to host Beshir and urged Ankara to reject any effort to suspend the ICC investigation.

The UN says up to 300,000 people have died and more than 2.2 million have fled their homes since the Darfur conflict erupted in February 2003. Sudan says 10,000 have been killed.

Beshir's presence has cast a shadow on the Istanbul gathering, attended by some 50 African leaders, which Ankara hopes will foster closer economic and political ties with the continent.

The participants are expected to issue later Tuesday a declaration stressing their political will for increased cooperation as well as a framework document listing areas of cooperation, including trade and investment, agriculture and water, health, peace and security, infrastructure, energy, transport, culture, tourism and education.

The summit ends Wednesday with a businessmen's meeting.

Turkey which adopted an action plan in 1998 to open up to African countries, has seen its trade volume with the continent rise to 13 billion dollars (8.8 billion euros) in 2007 from nine billion dollars in 2005.

Ankara also expects to use the summit to drum up support for its bid for a non-permanent seat on the Security Council.

Turkey has campaigned hard for the seat, reaching out to countries with which it has had minimal ties ahead of a UN vote in October when two new non-permanent Security Council members will be elected for 2009-2010.