UN Security Council ambassadors begin Africa tour

ADDIS ABABA, June 16 (Reuters) UN Security Council ambassadors landed in Ethiopia today pledging to help the African Union run peacekeeping missions in Sudan and Somalia.

The 15 envoys arrived at AU headquarters in Addis Ababa on the first leg of a trip that will also take them to Sudan, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Democratic Republic of Congo.

''We are here to have a good conversation with the AU about the situation in Africa, peacekeeping and strengthening the capacity of the AU to carry out peacekeeping and conflict prevention,'' U.S.

Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters.

The envoys then began closed-door talks with Alpha Omar Konare, chairman of the AU Commission. yesterday, an AU spokesman said the organisation would seek immediate financial and logistical support for its peacekeepers in Sudan's Darfur region and Somalia's capital Mogadishu.

Lack of funds meant African troops deployed in Darfur had not been for three months at a time, the spokesman said, while African nations that had offered to send soldiers to support Somalia's interim government had so far been unable to do so.

Top of the agenda for the ambassadors will be efforts to get a UN-AU peacekeeping force into Darfur, where some 200,000 people have died in four years of violence.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called Sudan's acceptance on Tuesday of a large force for Darfur ''a milestone'', but UN envoys acknowledge challenges on command structures and finding enough soldiers.

The UN-AU force -- made up of 23,000 troops and police -- is not expected to be deployed until next year, when it would shore up a beleaguered AU force of 7,000 soldiers already there.

On Somalia, the ambassadors are expected to hear appeals for funds for troops to reinforce 1,600 Ugandans patrolling in Mogadishu, where they have been targeted by Islamist insurgents battling the interim government.

Also high on the agenda will be the border dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea, where UN peacekeepers are manning the frontier after a 1998-2000 war that killed some 70,000 people.

REUTERS HK PM1430