ADDIS ABABA: The African Union is to set up a heads-of-state panel to find a solution to the Ivory Coast political crisis, with its conclusions binding on the main players in the dispute.

Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz announced the AU initiative to reporters on Friday after a meeting of the African Union’s peace and security council at the group of Addis Ababa headquarters.

"This panel will deliver its conclusions within a month and its decisions will be binding for all the Ivorian parties," said Abdel Aziz.

Its make-up would be announced within 48 hours, he added.

AU Commission spokesman Noureddine Mezni said the panel would be composed of "five heads of state, one from each region". The chairman of the panel would be the Mauritanian president, he added.

Explaining their decision, Abdel Aziz said that faced with an African problem, they were trying to find an African solution.

Ivory Coast leader Laurent Gbagbo has refused to heed calls to step down in favour of Alassane Ouattara who is internationally recognised as the winner of the November presidential polls.

The panel announcement came ahead of an African Union summit this weekend, where Ivory Coast is likely to be top of the agenda.

Four other heads of state were present at the meeting: Jacob Zuma of South Africa, Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria, Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe and Hifikepunye Pohamba of Namibia. Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore, a former facilitator between the Ivorian parties, made a brief appearance.

Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga, who is also AU mediator in the crisis, said just before the peace and security council meeting that this weekend's summit should "send a strong and unequivocal message that the two parties must negotiate face-to-face."

"Every day lost in moving forward towards a peaceful resolution of the crisis makes more imminent the spectre of further threats to peace and security in Cote d'Ivoire and the region," Odinga told reporters.

Odinga's two previous attempts to break the two-month-old political deadlock have failed.

The initial consensus by a majority of African leaders that Gbagbo should step aside or face military action seems to be waning. Zuma last week called for a change of strategy rather than calling on one of the leaders to go.

Officially Ivory Coast has not sent a representative to this weekend's summit as it has been suspended by the AU, but a delegation of "women patriots from Ivory Coast," a pro-Gbagbo organisation led by former minister Genevieve Bro Grebe, arrived Friday in Addis Ababa, the AU headquarters.

An excerpt from the peace and security council statement read out by Mezni demanded "the immediate removal of the siege of the Hotel du Golfe and an end to all acts of violence and abuses against the civilian population as well as calls having the effect of inciting hatred and violence."

Gbagbo's forces have surrounded the Abidjan hotel where rival Ouattara has been holed up since the crisis began.