By Irwin Arieff UNITED NATIONS, Jan 4 (Reuters) - New U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday welcomed Ethiopia's plan to pull its troops out of Somalia in a few weeks and called for a quick deployment of African peacekeepers there. Ban, who took office this week, "welcomes the stated intention of Ethiopia to withdraw its forces expeditiously, and calls on all states in the region to respect Somalia's sovereignty, unity, and territorial integrity," U.N. chief spokeswoman Michele Montas said. The 15-nation U.N. Security Council last month endorsed the deployment of an African peacekeeping force, as proposed by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development and African Union to help prop up Somalia's interim government. But before the force could be assembled, Ethiopia sent its own troops into Somalia and, alongside government soldiers, promptly drove out rival Islamist forces that last year asserted control over much of the country. Montas said Ban hoped the African force "can be put in place as quickly as possible." The Ethiopian presence violated a U.N. arms embargo on Somalia but Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said this week his soldiers would only stay in Somalia "for a few weeks," to help the government stabilize the country. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said on Thursday he was ready to send peacekeepers into Somalia as part of an African force as soon as parliament approved the plan. Nigeria, South Africa, Rwanda, Tanzania and Egypt were also weighing troop contributions, a U.N. official said on condition of anonymity. Somalia has been without an effective central government since 1991, when dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was driven from power. "The secretary-general calls on all Somali parties and the international community to seize the current moment and do their utmost to end the heavy loss of life, displacement and suffering that have plagued the country," Montas said.
