"We are going to have a private meeting Monday," Ambassador Nana Effah-Apenteng of Ghana, this month's president of the panel of 15, told reporters Friday at U.N. World Headquarters in New York.

That means it will be a formal, but non-public, session held around the gold-hued, horseshoe-shaped table in the council's main chamber, but the television cameras will be off and doors closed to all outsiders except invited guests.

The council president explained: "We have sent formal invitations to some of the other organizations which I think have a role to play in the Sudan situation. I think the African Union will be represented and I think the Organization of Islamic Conferences will be represented."

He added that invitations were also sent to the Arab League and the government of Sudan.

"Of course they have a mission here," he offered, meaning it would be easy for Khartoum to have representation at the meeting.

Effah-Apenteng said the charges d'affaires at the Sudan Mission to the United Nations telephoned him Thursday about attending.

"I left it up to him," whether to attend, Accra's envoy said. "But, I am by nature a very optimistic person. I think that since we are going to try to find a solution to the problem in his country he would do well to show up."

Effah-Apenteng said he expected the U.N. secretariat to have a briefing on the humanitarian situation in Darfur and on the U.N. secretariat's "comments on the proposals made by the government of Sudan on dealing with this situation."

Earlier this month Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir sent to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan a 12-page "comprehensive plan for strengthening security and restoring stability to the Darfur states and encompassing our view concerning the role that might be played by the United Nations in that connection."

The representative of Ghana, asked for his own reaction, replied forthrightly: "Frankly I think, it needs a thorough review and I am not ready."

However, he said he thought "the situation in Darfur to be so grave that a meeting is necessary."

Effah-Apenteng told reporters Thursday the council had received a letter from Bashir asking for a postponement of Monday's meeting "to enable better preparations." But the Ghanaian ambassador said members of the council would also continue to discuss a draft resolution circulated by Britain that outlines the size and scope of a possible U.N. peacekeeping operation, something Bashir has opposed adamantly.

In the letter, Bashir said a transfer of the African Union's current peacekeeping mandate in Darfur to a U.N. operation "does not find acceptance among large sectors of the people of Darfur.

"All its legislative, parliamentary and executive institutions at every level, including the Government of National Unity, have adopted unanimous resolutions categorically rejecting the process of transfer."

Violence between Sudanese armed forces, allied militias and rebel groups has led to the deaths of about 200,000 people since 2003 and forced 2 million others to flee their homes.

The seriousness of the situation was recently reflected two-fold.

Last week, U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown warned "something ugly is brewing" in Darfur, a region roughly the size of France on Sudan's border with Chad.

U.S. Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Jendayi E. Frazer left Washington Friday for Khartoum to consult with the Sudanese Government of National Unity on ending the violence in Darfur and supporting the Darfur Peace Agreement signed in May, said Gonzalo Gallegos, acting State Department spokesman.

"The United States believes there must be no delay in the transition to the U.N. force, which needs to begin by Oct. 1 to address the deteriorating security situation in Darfur and the pressing need for the continued and complete implementation of the DPA," he said.

"Darfur is on the verge of a dangerous, downward spiral," he said.

Chief U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters Khartoum's opposition to a force of blue helmets in Darfur remains the key issue before individual U.N. member states to determine whether they are willing to contribute troops to such a force.

Bashir has sworn to prevent the United Nations from sending a peacekeeping force, whether it is composed of Africans or soldiers of other races.

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