The 15-member United Nations Security Council heads to Africa this week to push for an end to 21 years of civil war in southern Sudan.
U.S. Ambassador John Danforth, the former Bush administration envoy to Sudan, organized the trip to Nairobi, Kenya, where peace talks have been taking place.
The Security Council also plans to demand Khartoum take stronger action to stop a separate conflict in the country's western Darfur region.
A U.N. commission is currently in Sudan to determine if genocide has occurred in Darfur. The 20-month conflict has killed 70,000 people, and displaced more than 1.5 million villagers.
The security council has only convened outside U.N. headquarters in New York three other times.
Some information for this report provided by AFP and Reuters.