South African President Thabo Mbeki opened an African Union summit Monday with a call for leaders to speed up the creation of a continent-wide security council to tackle the region's many wars. The first special summit of the African Union, which was born out of the Organization of African Unity last July, brought together the continent's leaders to forge common policies on African conflicts and a possible war in Iraq.

Despite moves to create a council to intervene in African conflicts, a proposal from Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to create a "United States of Africa" was seen as a step too far and rejected last month by AU foreign ministers.

Gaddafi, known to supporters as "The Guide," arrived in Addis with an entourage of several hundred people.

Asked how he felt about the United States threatening Iraq with war, he told Reuters: "It seems that the world we are living in is in a crazy era now, but there's nothing to do, except to take good care."

Senior AU sources said a common stance on Iraq was likely to be in line with the position of the United Nations.

STRONGER VOICE

Criticized for its ineffectiveness in tackling Africa's own conflicts from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Ivory Coast, the AU is hoping the planned Peace and Security Council will give it a stronger voice.

Once it is created, the council will have the right to step in if it fears genocide, war crimes, or a serious threat to the legitimate order. But it is still unclear how much real power the body will wield.

Only Algeria has so far ratified the protocol that is needed to set up the council, and Mbeki, among others, has been pushing for the process to be accelerated.

Delegates began discussing Africa's wars Monday, with cocoa-growing Ivory Coast, where civil war erupted more than four months ago, thought to be at the top of the agenda.

A French-brokered peace deal has triggered days of large often violent street protests by supporters of President Laurent Gbagbo who say the accord would give too much power to rebels.

Interim chairman of the AU, Amara Essy, a former Ivory Coast foreign minister, told Reuters opposition to the deal was not a reason to conclude that the peace process had failed.

"You think we can resolve a conflict in one meeting? Europe took maybe 100 years to have peace and security today," he said.

Providing an insight into Sudan's peace process, Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail told Reuters rebels and government were making progress at talks in Nairobi.

He said after 20 years of fighting the government and rebels were on the verge of agreeing how to better enforce a cease-fire and how to share the country's wealth.

Security was tight in Addis Ababa, as presidents and ministers from across the continent jetted in at the weekend, clogging traffic in the city as their convoys cruised streets decked with the flags of the union's 53 member states.

Officials said delegates had also agreed on proposals to involve the African diaspora in building the union, to ensure women participate fully, and to work toward continent-wide positions on trade, defense and foreign policy.

PHOTO CAPTION

Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo (L) talks to South African President and Member of the African Union Thabo Mbeki at the end of the summit of West African leaders aimed at ending a bloody four-month-old war in Ivory Coast, during a news conference at the Kleber conference hall in Paris, January 26, 2003. REUTERS/Charles P