In a 75-minute speech he suggested setting up a "national transition council" and enlarging the junta known as the National Council for Democracy and Development (CNDD) to include civilians before holding elections.

Camara was addressing the international contact group on Guinea and hundreds of people representing parties, trade unions and religious authorities.

The junta took power on December 23 hours after the death was announced of president Lansana Conte, who was in power from 1984 to 2008.

The new leaders had originally promised to organise free elections by December 2010, but revised that decision in January after objections from political parties and international organisations.

They have now undertaken to hold polls by the end of 2009.

Camara, refusing to give a precise electoral calendar, said: "We first ask the international comnmunity to give us the means to lay down the legal basis for free and transparent elections before asking us to hold these elections."

After the meeting, the African Union's special representative Ibrahima Fall spoke of the CNDD's "wish to move ahead," saying it was "absolutely necessary that the electoral process be backed and supported financially and technically" but calling for a calendar for the elections.

Camara also stressed that the junta had a "mission to clean up public finance and fight criminality, drug trafficking, the trafficking of children and the theft of public goods."

Earlier on Monday the European Union proposed talks with the ruling junta, hoping to encourage the introduction of the rule of law in return for the resumption of suspended EU aid.

In a letter to Prime Minister Kabine Komara, the EU decided "to invite your country for consultations in order... to study the situation in depth and, where appropriate, take steps to remedy it."

The letter marks the official opening of the consultation process set out in the 2000 Cotonou Agreement on relations between the EU and African, Caribbean and Pacific nations in case of serious threats to democracy and human rights.

The talks in Brussels should cover in particular "a transition roadmap" for the country including "the organisation of free and transparent general and presidential elections" by the end of the year.

Under the terms of the agreement, they would normally open within a month.

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Abeche, Chad (AFP) March 15, 2009
United Nations forces took over command from European Union peacekeepers here Sunday to protect refugees and displaced people in Chad and the Central African Republic.