The United Nations was looking into the possibility of a peacekeeping mission to Mali, a high-ranking UN official said Wednesday at the beginning of a two-day meeting of West African heads of states in Ivory Coast.
"The United Nations secretariat has started to develop an analysis of the conditions under which the organization would deploy blue helmets," UN Secretary General for West Africa Said Djinnit told the 42nd Summit of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in the Ivorian capital, Yamoussoukro.
Malian leader Dioncouda Traore had asked UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to support the transition to a UN peacekeeping mission from an African-led force combating Islamist insurgents in Mali, Djinnit said. UN Security Council members expressed willingness to consider the deployment of such a mission "at the appropriate time," Djinnit said.
Chadian President Idriss Deby has initially called for a quicker deployment of African troops in Mali. "This is no time for speeches, and less for time-consuming procedures; it's time now for broad actions," Deby said.
He called on the regional bloc to accelerate deployment of its troops to the north of Mali to ensure it did not fall again to Islamist insurgents. "We call the ECOWAS army chiefs to act much more speedily and send troops in newly liberated areas in order to enhance security of persons and goods," he said.
While Chad is not part of the 15-member ECOWAS, it has sent about 2,000 soldiers to support the French-led military operation that has entered its seventh week. Soldiers seek to flush out al-Qaeda-linked rebels from Mali's north.
"The conflict in Mali challenges us to build a regional defence strategy based on the pooling of our resources," said ECOWAS chairman Alassane Ouattara.
The meeting comes after the Mediation and Security Council of ECOWAS on Monday called to increase the number of West African soldiers to be deployed in Mali.
The revised concept of the African-led International Support Mission to Mali (AFISMA) calls for 8,000 troops instead of the planned 3,700, and for a robust police and civilian component.
The summit opened with a silent tribute to the Chadian, Togolese and French soldiers who lost their lives in the clashes against jihadist insurgents in Mali.
Al-Qaeda-linked insurgents had overrun the vast north of the African country early last year. The Islamist militants' main forces, estimated to number several thousand, are believed to have retreated into the remote, mountainous desert of northern Mali after having ceded most of their urban strongholds and airports to allied French and African forces.
France launched its offensive on January 11 against Islamist rebels who were advancing on the capital Bamako in the south.