Gordon Brown has raised hopes of a response to the crisis in Zimbabwe within days after the Archbishop of York urged him to take action against President Robert Mugabe.
The Prime Minister spoke to John Sentamu as the Archbishop publicly called on him to lead an international campaign against the Harare regime.
Dr Sentamu appeared encouraged by his conversation with the premier and expressed optimism that an announcement might be imminent.
The Archbishop disclosed that Mr Brown had watched a major BBC Newsnight report last week detailing the poverty and repression inflicted on Zimbabwe by Mr Mugabe.
"He's concerned," Dr Sentamu said. "I'm hoping the Prime Minister this week is going to make some kind of response."
The Archbishop went on to suggest the premier was sympathetic to concerns that an "African solution" did not appear to be forthcoming.
"He says part of the trouble has been whenever the international community has wanted to do something the African Union has said we will give it an African solution," Dr Sentamu told BBC1's Sunday AM. "But I don't think they're (going to), just as I don't think they've been successful in Darfur already."
The Archbishop called for a full boycott of the Zimbabwean economy and its sport.
He added that countries should also look at reducing Zimbabwe's embassy staff, alleging that their diplomatic privileges were used to take money out of the African nation.
Ahead of his conversation with the Prime Minister, Dr Sentamu penned an article for the Observer urging Mr Brown to look past Britain's "colonialist guilt" in the former Rhodesia.
