diff -Nuar yaz-4.2.30.orig/configure.ac yaz-4.2.30/configure.ac
--- yaz-4.2.30.orig/configure.ac	2012-03-23 10:20:20.000000000 +0000
+++ yaz-4.2.30/configure.ac	2012-04-22 20:56:41.118691087 +0000
@@ -372,14 +372,13 @@
 
 dnl
 dnl 
-AC_CHECK_ICU([3.4],[
-	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
-])
+AC_ARG_ENABLE(icu, [  --enable-icu            enable ICU support],[enable_icu=$enableval],[enable_icu=no])
+if test "$enable_icu" = "yes"; then
+    AC_CHECK_ICU([3.4],[
+       ICU_CPPFLAGS="$ICU_CPPFLAGS -D YAZ_HAVE_ICU=1"],[
+       AC_MSG_ERROR([For ICU support please install libicu34-dev or similar])
+    ])
+fi
 dnl ------ versioning
 dnl
 WIN_FILEVERSION=`echo $PACKAGE_VERSION | $AWK 'BEGIN { FS = "."; } { m = $4; printf("%d,%d,%d,%d", $1, $2, $3 == "" ? "0" : $3, $4 == "" ? "1" : $4);}'`