(Adds Obasanjo comment, background)
KHARTOUM, Jan 23 (Reuters) - The African Union will call on the United Nations to make an exception in its arms embargo on Somalia to allow foreign peacekeepers into the country to help the interim government, a draft AU resolution said on Monday.
The East African nation has been without central government since 1991 and remains a patchwork of fiefdoms ruled by rival warlords. An interim administration formed in neighbouring Kenya returned last year but has limited control over the country.
Some East African states have said they would be willing to contribute peacekeepers but Somali officials say the United Nations would need to lift an arms embargo before any foreign soldiers could be deployed.
"The Executive Council (of the AU) ... called upon the U.N. Security Council to provide an exemption on the arms embargo on Somalia with a view to facilitating the envisaged deployment (of peacekeepers)," said a draft resolution from an AU summit, which opened in Sudan on Monday.
The resolution referred to African peace support missions.
Somali presidential envoy, Abdirashid Sed, told Reuters on the summit sidelines, that the decision could also pave the way for peacekeepers from outside Africa to come to Somalia.
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, current AU chairman, said progress in helping Somalia had been slow and the AU lacked the necessary resources to assist.
"This situation is further compounded by the reluctance of the United Nations to lift the arms embargo to allow the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development Peace Support Mission (IGASOM) to deploy," he told the summit.
IGASOM is a force set up by East African states, comprising Ugandan and Sudanese troops, who would deploy to Somalia.
The United Nations has refused previous requests to lift or ease the embargo, in place since 1992 and which bans all weapons entering the country including those needed by peacekeepers.
In July said it said it would reconsider the ban once if received a mission from the East Africans seeking to send troops.
Weapons still flow freely across Somalia's borders, but the AU or any other official group or country would need an exemption from the Security Council to bring in weapons.
INTERNATIONAL COURTS
Previous foreign peacekeeping missions in Somalia have ended disastrously. The United States sent troops in 1992 ahead of a U.N. force but left two years later after tough resistance from warlords, including a 1993 clash which killed 18 U.S. soldiers.
A Western diplomat said Somalia had to be clear about what the exact role of any peace mission would be, as it had in the past sent mixed signals on whether it wanted security for the government or broader help with disarmament.
The AU draft resolution recommended that acts of violence by groups attempting to undermine the peace process should be referred to the U.N. Security Council, the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice.
The AU resolution had already been agreed by African foreign ministers and would be rubber stamped by heads of state at the AU summit, Sed said.
Somalia collapsed into chaos after the overthrow of military ruler Mohammed Siad Barre in 1991, and conflict and famine have killed hundreds of thousands of people since then.
President Abdullahi Yusuf's government -- the 14th attempt at effective administration in almost as many years -- has had to settle in a provincial town, Jowhar, because of security concerns in the capital Mogadishu.
Source: Reuters, Jan. 23, 2006
