diff -ur yaz-3.0.26.orig/configure.ac yaz-3.0.26/configure.ac
--- yaz-3.0.26.orig/configure.ac	2008-02-21 12:48:44.000000000 +0200
+++ yaz-3.0.26/configure.ac	2008-04-21 20:58:13.000000000 +0300
@@ -349,14 +349,14 @@
 
 dnl
 dnl 
-AC_CHECK_ICU([3.6],[
-	if test "$xml_enabled" = "true"; then
-	    ICU_CPPFLAGS="$ICU_CPPFLAGS -D YAZ_HAVE_ICU=1"
-	else
-	    ICU_CPPFLAGS=""
-	    AC_MSG_WARN([ICU support disabled because XML support is unavailable])
-	fi
-])
++dnl ------ ICU
+AC_ARG_ENABLE(icu, [  --enable-icu            enable ICU support],[enable_icu=$enableval],[enable_icu=no])
+if test "$enable_icu" = "yes"; then
+    AC_CHECK_ICU([3.6],[
+	    ICU_CPPFLAGS="$ICU_CPPFLAGS -D YAZ_HAVE_ICU=1"],[
+	    AC_MSG_ERROR([For ICU support please install libicu36-dev or similar])
+    ])
+fi
 dnl
 dnl ------ Memory debugging
 AC_ARG_ENABLE(memdebug, [  --enable-memdebug       enable memory debugging],[enable_memdebug=$enableval],[enable_memdebug=none])