By Louis Charbonneau

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 5 (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has been advised to "distance himself" from Sudan's president, who could face an international arrest warrant for genocide in Darfur, diplomats and U.N. officials said.

Last month the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, asked the court's judges to issue an arrest warrant for President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for war crimes in Sudan's conflict-ravaged Darfur region.

Moreno-Ocampo accused the Sudanese leader of orchestrating a campaign of genocide that has killed 35,000 people outright, at least another 100,000 through starvation and disease and forced 2.5 million from their homes.

The diplomats and U.N. officials, all speaking on condition of anonymity, said the advice came from Ban's legal advisers, who said he should "distance himself politically" from Bashir due to the possibility that the ICC will issue the warrant.

The sources, some of them speaking on Tuesday, were confirming a report in the pan-Arab newspaper al-Hayat.

Ban's spokeswoman Michele Montas declined to comment on the issue but told reporters that if Ban did receive such advice it would be up to him as to whether or not he acts on it.

One U.N. official said it was "common sense" advice.

The last time U.N. officials confirmed Ban had spoken with Bashir was last month, shortly before the ICC crisis began.

It was not immediately clear what such political distancing would entail, since Ban needs to keep working closely with Bashir and his government on the Darfur peace process and to ensure the urgent full deployment of U.N.-African Union peacekeepers in Darfur, known as UNAMID.

As security worsens in Darfur, only 9,500 out of a planned total of 26,000 UNAMID troops and police have been deployed so far due to the many demands the Sudanese government made on its composition and the failure of troop contributing countries to provide helicopters and other badly needed hardware.

Bashir has not been officially indicted by the ICC and if he is, it will probably take several months for the court to make a decision, diplomats and U.N. officials have said.

DELICATE BALANCE

However, the advice from Ban's legal department highlights the kind of political tightrope the secretary-general will have to walk in his relations with Sudan.

If Bashir is formally indicted, it could be risky for Ban to be seen publicly with him, since it might be seen as a criticism of the ICC in the Darfur case, diplomats said.

The African Union, Arab League and other alliances have urged the Security Council to block any ICC action against Bashir to avoid harming the fragile peace process in Darfur.

The council approved a resolution last week extending the mandate of UNAMID for another year. It also "took note" of the AU's concerns about the ICC moves and its appeal to the council to freeze any indictment, something China, Russia, South Africa and others on the council say they want the council to do.

Sudan's U.N. Ambassador Abdalmahmoud Abdalhaleem said that Khartoum "enjoys cordial relations with the secretary-general and does not want to react to media reports."

However, he hinted that any "distancing" would not be welcome, since the United Nations is there to serve its 192 members.

"The U.N. is not a supranational body but is in service of the member states," Abdalhaleem told Reuters.

Bashir has said that he would ignore any ICC arrest warrant, and Abdalhaleem has suggested that Bashir might appear in New York in September to address the U.N. General Assembly. (Editing by David Wiessler)

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