A policy statement by the 15-nation council appeared to show growing interest in a UN force to take over from existing African Union troops, but members remained cautious about peacekeeping in the turbulent Horn of Africa nation.

Islamist-led rebels have been fighting the Somali government and its Ethiopian military allies since January when they were ousted from Mogadishu, though in recent weeks large-scale battles have given way to guerrilla-style strikes.

A national reconciliation conference between the country's many factions and clans, aimed at ending 16 years of anarchy, was postponed on Wednesday for the second time.

"The Security Council emphasizes the urgent need for appropriate contingency planning for a possible United Nations mission, to be deployed in Somalia if the Security Council decided to authorize such a mission," the statement said.

The council had asked in April for planning to start. Its latest statement said it awaited news of progress in a report U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is to deliver on Friday.

Asked about a possible U.N. force, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Lynn Pascoe, who has just visited Somalia, said it had been extensively discussed at the Security Council consultations that produced Thursday's statement.

"I think the general consensus was that they want to see how the political process is going, they want to make sure the national reconciliation process is moving in the right direction, that there is a political process there that can be supported," he told reporters.

Somali diplomat Idd Mohamed told Reuters: "The Somali government view is that the United Nations and the Security Council in particular should move quickly and take over from African Union peacekeeping forces."

The African Union force in Somalia so far consists only of 1 600 Ugandan troops, although Burundi said on Thursday it would send a battalion next month.

Pascoe said he was not surprised the reconciliation conference due to open on Thursday had been put off for a month, a postponement blamed on delays in choosing delegates and the unreadiness of the venue. But he signaled that any further delay would be one too many.

"If it takes place in that month, I'm not going to be too concerned about it ... I would be concerned if there were a further delay," he said.

Ban, in a report earlier this year, suggested if violence increased a "coalition of the willing" with a strong military capability should be considered.

But outside intervention in Somalia has a dismal history. The killing of U.S. troops there in late 1993 in the so-called "Black Hawk Down" battle marked the beginning of the end for a U.S.-U.N. peacekeeping force that quit Somalia in 1995 and influenced U.S. policy for years.

After the Security Council's April discussions on Somalia, British Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry said no U.N. peacekeepers would go there unless there was a "sufficient peace to keep."