A summit of east African heads of state from the seven-member Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) got under way here yesterday with conflict resolution and security in the volatile region on the agenda.

The one-day meeting will cover the civil war in Sudan, the re-establishment of a broad-based government in lawless Somalia and the controversy surrounding the physical marking-out of Ethiopia's border with Eritrea.

IGAD brings together the governments of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Sudan and Uganda. Somalia, which has no universally recognised government, is nominally also a member state.

Presidents Mwai Kibaki of Kenya, Sudan's Omar al-Beshir, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and Ethiopia's Prime Minister Meles Zenawi were attending the summit.

Somalia was represented by the president of the country's transitional national government Abdulkassim Salat Hassan and Djibouti and Eritrea by their foreign ministers.

Also present was the chairperson of the African Union, Mozambique's President Joaquim Chissano.

IGAD is mediating in peace talks currently being held in Kenya aimed at ending the 20-year-old civil war in Sudan and is spearheading national reconciliation efforts in Somalia, which has not had a functioning government since the overthrow of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.

"Sudan is steadily moving towards a comprehensive peace and we are confident that this comprehensive peace will be achieved," said Beshir, IGAD's outgoing chairperson.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Wednesday after meeting both parties to the Sudanese conflict in Kenya that they had pledged to sign a comprehensive deal to end two decades of civil war by the end of December.

"The leaders of Somali factions should abandon their differences so that they can be able to see opportunities before them," said Museveni, who assumed IGAD's chairmanship for the coming year.

Peace talks expected to lead to the establishment of a government of national unity in Somalia are going on the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

"The African Union wants a strong and united Somalia," said Chissano. – Sapa-AFP.