UNITED NATIONS – A group of African nations yesterday posed a new solution for trying Darfur war criminals. Movement on Sudan by the Security Council has been at a standstill for weeks due to disagreements between America and Europe regarding the role of the International Criminal Court in the case.

Nigeria, as head of the African Union, circulated among the council’s 15 members a position paper calling for an “African panel for Criminal Justice and Reconciliation” as an alternative to the ICC. The panel, according to the proposal, would “handle the prosecution of the alleged human rights violations of those who committed war crimes in Darfur.”

The idea did not sit well with a council group of strong proponents of the newly established court. The group, known as the “ICC Nine,” had a closed-door meeting on Tuesday, and according to one participating senior European diplomat, they decided to allow “minimum concessions to the Americans.”

An American proposal for a Sudan resolution, which would entail strengthening the African Union’s force in Darfur, imposing a weapons embargo, threatening sanctions, and flight restrictions, has been shelved for weeks. Europeans refused to endorse it unless the ICC is specified as the arena for war crime trials. The Nigerian proposal, which was circulated shortly after that meeting, might become a “seductive alternative,” the European diplomat said.

Stopping just short of an outright endorsement, American diplomats welcomed the Nigerian initiative. Washington has always supported “African ideas for African solutions,” the spokesman for the American U.N. mission, Richard Grenell, told The New York Sun. While the Nigerian paper was not detailed, he added, America views it favorably.

Mr. Grenell yesterday insisted that Washington’s “position on the ICC has not changed.”

Algerian Ambassador Abdallah Baali, who is one of the council’s three African members, said the council has reached a “stalemate” between America and Europe. “They are stuck,” he told the Sun. “I don’t think the Europeans should disregard this proposal.”

Supporters of the court insist that American antagonism to the ICC is the real problem. “There is no real substance” to the Nigerian proposal, said Richard Dicker of Human Rights Watch. Secretary-General Annan has recommended that human rights violators would be referred to the ICC, Mr. Dicker noted, and only the Khartoum government would gain if the recommendation is not accepted.

“I think we would look at it favorably,” Sudan’s ambassador Elfatih Erwa told the Sun, adding there is no clear government position yet on the Nigerian proposal. “You cannot take tribal issues in Africa and deal with it in the ICC,” he said of the Hague-based court.

Mr. Dicker argued that the ICC is not the only issue dividing the council, since China and Russia strongly oppose sanctions or weapons embargo. At the same time, he acknowledged, the ICC prevents the Europeans from endorsing the American proposed resolution.