NAIROBI, Jan 5: An international meeting on Friday called for urgent funding for a peacekeeping mission in Somalia which the strife-torn African country’s president said was desperately needed, but failed to set a deployment timeline.

The United Nations, United States, European Union, African Union, Arab League and East African states discussed the crisis as the Somali government and their Ethiopian allies hunted Islamist leaders that were forced out of Mogadishu last month.

US naval forces were also patrolling off the Somali coast to ensure Islamists did not flee by sea.

The panel, known as the international contact group on Somalia, “emphasized the urgent need for funding to facilitate the deployment of a stabilisation force in Somalia based on UN Security Council resolution 1725,” said a statement read by Kenyan Foreign Minister Raphael Tuju.

Previous US and UN peacekeeping forays into Somalia between 1993 and 1995 ended disastrously.

“It is essential that an inclusive process of political dialogue and reconciliation reject violence and extremism - be launched without delay,” it added. President Abdullahi Yusuf Amed of Somalia called for a “speedy deployment” of international troops which he said would be crucial to hopes of bringing order.

The UN has called for the deployment of 8,000 peacekeepers and Uganda has pledged troops. Other potential contributors include Rwanda, Tanzania, South Africa and Nigeria.

The US top diplomat for Africa Jendayi Frazer said Washington would release an extra $24 million -- $10 million for development and $14 million for the force -- bringing the total US pledge to $40 million. Other donations have yet to be announced.

“It is very important that the government reach out very broadly (to) include moderate elements of the Islamic Courts Union ... It is the Somalis to identify who is moderate,” she added.

In Brussels, the 27 EU countries urged the government “to turn its military victory into a political success, which implies an opening up and an inclusive (political) process,” a diplomat told AFP, adding that inclusion of Islamist moderates would be “a condition for the continuation of our aid”.

No deployment date has been set, but the force will be designed to help the Somali president increase control of his lawless nation, which is still splintered along clan lines.

At the contact group meeting, Kenya, which organised the regional initiative that brokered the formation of the government, warned of renewed anarchy in Somalia if international support was delayed.

“Failure to act immediately will lead to vacuum that would certainly be exploited by the warlords and other extremist forces,” Tuju said.

In Addis Ababa, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi also called in a joint statement for the “immediate deployment” of troops in Somalia.

AU commission chairman Alpha Omar Konare told the two leaders “we need to have an immediate response,” and added that the African body would oversee the whole exercise.

Earlier, this week, Ethiopian troops backing government forces forced Islamist fighters out of their final strongholds, after a two-week war, and vowed to unify the country, which disintegrated following the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

The Islamists last year restored some order by quelling warlords. But largely Christian Ethiopia supported the weak two-year-old transitional government and said the Islamists were a threat to Ethiopian security—AFP