Foreign ministers from Africa's Great Lakes region began a three-day meeting Monday in Bangui, capital of the Central African Republic (CAR) to finalize preparations for a heads of state summit due to be held in Nairobi, Kenya, later this year.

According to the United Nations Information, CAR President Francois Bozize opened the meeting, which was also attended by the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General to the Great Lakes, Ibrahima Fall, Mamadou Bah of the African Union (AU), as well as Aldo Ajello, the representative of the European Union to the region.

In a joint statement, the UN-AU secretariat organizing the international conference said the ministers would finalize all documents in preparation for the Nairobi summit. They are due to review and adopt a draft pact on security, stability and development, as well as programs of action for all the four main themes of the conference, which are: peace and security, democracy and good governance, economic development and regional integration, and humanitarian and social issues.

The secretariat said in addition to these, the ministers would also review and adopt draft protocols and the institutional follow-up mechanism of the conference. These documents were prepared by the Regional Preparatory Committee in a series of meetings and workshops that have been held in various venues since the last heads of state summit in 2004, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

The Bangui meeting is the minister' third meeting since Dar es Salaam summit.

Representatives of Angola, Burundi, CAR, Republic of Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia are attending the meeting.

(Xinhua News Agency February 21, 2006)