By Michelle Nichols UNITED NATIONS, March 7 (Reuters) - Rwanda appealed on Wednesday for the U.N. Security Council to abolish a provision requiring notification of all arms exports to the African nation, saying it impeded its ability to equip peacekeepers. A Security Council committee set up to oversee the Rwanda arms embargo said in 1996 that it no longer needed to be notified of arms exports but the requirement is still contained in a resolution. The committee told the Security Council in December that had led to ambiguity and asked the council to decide the future of the requirement. In a letter to the Security Council, Rwandan U.N. envoy Joseph Nsengimana said Kigali believed there were politically motivated attempts to revive the arms export notification requirement, but he did not elaborate. "We urge the Security Council to address this issue urgently," Nsengimana said. "We see no continuing justification for this provision." "I am sure there will be little doubt that these requirements would impede efforts to ensure that our personnel serving under United Nations and African Union mandates continue to be well equipped for peacekeeping duties," he said. Rwanda currently has police, troops or military observers in U.N. peacekeeping missions in Haiti, Liberia, Sudan and the Ivory Coast and African Union missions in Sudan's Darfur region and the Comoros. Diplomats say Kigali also has hundreds more troops ready to send to Darfur. "These contributions demonstrate Rwanda's commitment to international peace and security and are at variance with the spirit of the notification requirement that was imposed over 11 years," Nsengimana said. A U.N. arms embargo imposed on Rwanda in May 1994 -- after soldiers of the former Rwandan army and Hutu militia began slaughtering Tutsis -- was suspended for the country's government for one year in 1995 and then lifted in 1996. It is still in place for militia.
