Nairobi, Kenya, January 19, 2007 - Uganda's ruling party has approved a plan to send peacekeeping troops to Somalia, officials said today, making the deployment almost certain to go ahead.

President Yoweri Museveni has pledged 1,000 troops to a proposed 8,000-strong peacekeeping force under a UN-approved plan to pacify the chaotic Horn of Africa country.

The deployment still has to be approved by parliament, which plans to meet in the next two weeks to discuss it. But a spokesman for Museveni's National Resistance Movement (NRM) party, which dominates parliament, Mr Ofwono Opondo, said the 237 ruling party MPs approved the plan on Thursday, making it almost certain to go ahead.

Foregone conclusion

"The NRM caucus has approved the deployment of troops to Somalia," he said. "That is more than two thirds of MPs, so it is a forgone conclusion."

Diplomats have called for an urgent deployment of troops to prevent a security vacuum as Ethiopia, which last month routed Islamists and enabled Somalia's transitional government to take control of Mogadishu for the first time, pulls out.

The African Union's Peace and Security Council is meeting later on Friday in Addis Ababa to discuss the deployment plans.

Opondo said Uganda's parliament would still discuss some outstanding issues when it meets.

Source: The Nation