NAIROBI, Kenya, June 2 2008 - The U.N. Security Council meets the key players in the Somalia conflict on Monday to try to persuade the disparate factions to cooperate and restore order to the desperately poor and lawless Horn of Africa country.

The Somalia talks mark the start of a 10-day tour of regional hot-spots that will bring diplomats from the 15-nation council to Sudan's war-torn Darfur region, southern Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad and the Ivory Coast.

The meetings on Monday and Tuesday will be held in Djibouti, not in Somalia as some council members had hoped, because U.N. security officials were worried that the Security Council would be too tempting a target for armed militants.

Insurgents fired mortars on Sunday at a plane carrying Somalia's interim President Abdullahi Yusuf to Djibouti for the meeting with the council. He was unharmed but the incident highlighted the risks facing politicians in Somalia.

South Africa's ambassador to the United Nations, Dumisani Kumalo, said he hoped the Somalis would seize the opportunity to prove to the Security Council that they are serious about getting their country back on its feet.

Somalia has been without a central government since the toppling of a dictator in 1991. Its latest attempt to restore central rule has been derailed by an insurgency that began in early 2007 after Ethiopian and Somali troops pushed an Islamist movement out of Mogadishu.

Since then, at least 6,500 people have been killed and more than 1 million Somalis have become refugees in their own land, the vast majority having fled violence in Mogadishu.

Kumalo said the Djibouti meeting represented a "great opportunity" for Somalis to try to find peace and stability.

"All the major players on Somalia will be there and we will want to encourage them to work hard at moving the political process forward," Kumalo told reporters in New York on Friday.

In addition to the transition government and opposition, council diplomats will hold talks with Somali civil society activists and African Union peacekeepers.

PESSIMISM

Although important players like Yusuf and members of the opposition will be present, hardline opposition figures, including Islamist insurgents in Somalia, are boycotting peace talks which began in Djibouti over weekend.

The Islamists say mediation can go nowhere until Ethiopian troops backing the government withdraw from Somalia.

The divided opposition and failure of previous attempts at negotiating peace are among the reasons Somalia experts are pessimistic about the chances of a breakthrough in Djibouti.

The U.N. special envoy for Somalia, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, expressed hope that the talks would be successful, saying the "independence, honour and dignity of Somalia are at stake."

Kumalo said the council can offer a key carrot to Somalia -- if the Somalis themselves prove they are capable of reaching a political settlement and improving the security situation in the country, they can get U.N. peacekeepers.

Last month the Security Council passed a resolution that said it would consider the possibility of sending U.N. troops to Somalia to replace AU peacekeepers, known as AMISOM, if the political atmosphere and security situation improved. (Editing by Mary Gabriel)

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