Paris ? African nations — three of them members of the U.N. Security Council — unanimously support the view that weapons inspections, not war, are the best way to disarm Iraq, the French president said Friday.

Jacques Chirac spoke at the close of a two-day Franco-African conference in Paris. Every African nation except Somalia was represented and all have “identical” positions on Iraq, he said.

“Everything justifies that the goal be reached through peaceful means, through inspections and not by military force, as things stand today,” he said.

A day earlier, the delegates had released a brief statement saying war should be a last resort.

The United States needs support from at least nine of the 15 council members to win approval for a resolution authorizing a war on Iraq, providing France, Russia or China, all three permanent council members, do not cast a veto.

Three African countries — Angola, Cameroon and Guinea — are nonpermanent council members. It was unclear whether their backing for Thursday’s statement meant they would vote against any resolution approving war.

France, the most vocal proponent of continued inspections, has been lobbying for additional support for the inspectors.

South African President Thabo Mbeki, left, and French President Jacques Chirac speak at a news conference at the end of the 22nd Franco-African summit in Paris. Chirac said Friday that every African nation represented at the summit had voiced an antiwar stance on Iraq.

Since Chirac’s re-election last May, he has sought to strengthen his influence in Africa, and he plans to make the continent a main concern at the Group of Eight summit in the Alpine resort of Evian in June.

The Paris summit gathered 52 African nations and was dominated by protests about Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, whose regime is widely accused of human rights abuses including torture, and by concerns about civil war in Ivory Coast, the world’s largest cocoa producer.

Chirac said he hoped the former French colony would back “as soon as possible” a power-sharing deal that was brokered outside Paris. Prime Minister Seydou Diarra and Guillaume Soro, leader of the main rebel group, were to meet later Friday in Paris.

The Jan. 24 deal aims to end a war that has killed hundreds of people, displaced more than 1 million, and paralyzed one of Africa’s leading economic hubs.