UN envoy heads to Somalia for peace force talks

NAIROBI, Jan 18 (Reuters) A UN envoy flew to Mogadishu to meet Somalia's president today for talks on security and the deployment of African peacekeepers.

Francois Lonseny Fall, a special representative of the UN secretary-general, was due to meet President Abdullahi Yusuf, who came to the capital last week for the first time since 2004.

''This is the first time we are visiting Yusuf in Mogadishu,'' Fall said.

''We are going to discuss issues including reconciliation and dialogue and see how we can work together for the successful deployment of African peacekeeping troops.'' Somalia's interim government, once confined to the provincial town Baidoa, has called for the urgent deployment of a peacekeeping force after its troops, backed by Ethiopian armour, chased rival Islamists out of the capital and most of southern Somalia before the New Year.

It wants the force in Somalia by February and Ethiopia wants to pull out its troops in weeks, but most analysts say it will take far longer to organise and finance the mission.

High on Fall's agenda will be plans to disarm thousands of gunmen, muzzle a host of warlords blamed for years of chaos since the 1991 ouster of a dictator and develop a country mired in poverty.

Washington is pledging 40 million dollar for Somalia, 16 million dollar of which would help fund the proposed African Union peacekeeping force approved by the UN Security Council before the war.

Since Ethiopian-Somali forces took Mogadishu on December 28, Yusuf and Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi have been trying to bring the volatile nation of 10 million to heel while hunting Islamist fighters who fled into the remote south near Kenya.

Yesterday, Somalia's parliament ousted its speaker, Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan, who infuriated Yusuf and Gedi late last year with peace overtures to the Islamists.

Yusuf and Gedi's administration rejected a US attempt to have them sit down with Adan and Washington has criticised the government for supporting his removal.

Reuters SP GC1203