A senior Ghanaian international relation expert has called for peaceful talks involving the former Malian government, the military junta, Tuareg rebels and international community to ensure Mali's territorial integrity.

"Can we have that diplomatic effort? Can we have both the high diplomacy, and then the soft diplomacy-talking, making them part of the making of Mali. This is what we need now, and I can't see any other way," Vladimir Antwi-Danso, director for the Ghana's Legon Center for International Affairs and Diplomacy (LECIAD), told Xinhua on Tuesday.

LECIAD was established in 1989 by the Council of the University of Ghana at the request of the then Ministry of Foreign Affairs (now Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Regional Cooperation and NEPAD). LECIAD is a relatively young but enterprising center for studies in International Affairs in Ghana.

Vladimir Antwi-Danso said the Tuareg problem has existed for more than 40 years. It came to a head between 1987 and 1994, when the United States and France even came in to broker some peace. After a military coup in March that toppled Mali's government just weeks ahead of scheduled elections, the Tuareg rebels swept through the north with relative ease and wrested control of several strategic cities, including Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu.

The Tuaregs are a Berber people with a traditionally nomadic pastoralist lifestyle numbering over 5.7 million people. They are the principal inhabitants of the Saharan interior of North Africa.

"The most worrisome is the fact that the Arab Spring has brought about insecurity, not only in North Africa, but the Sahelian region and therefore West Africa especially, because arms are now cheap, indiscipline, gun-running has become the order of the day," he said.

He added that the Arab Spring would continue to bring untold hardship not only to that region in the north, Aram Maghreb, but also in West Africa and even beyond.

Mali's desert Tuaregs proclaimed independence for what they call the state of Azawad on Friday, after capturing key towns since last week in an advance that caught the newly-installed junta off guard.

"I am in support of something that would bring peace, ensure territorial integrity of Mali. If you start changing boundaries right now, there would be more chaos, more conflict," he told Xinhua.

He also called on the related sides to have peaceful talks to solve the problem rather than only imposing sanctions.

"So there are three sides to it. We have the (military) junta, we have the government that has left office, and then we have the Tuaregs. Let's talk," he said.

"Another variable, then the international community is the forth variable.All must come together to find the solution to this menace," Antwi-Danso added.

Antwi-Danso said, for lasting peace to be brought to Mali, there was need for a hybrid force like the type in the Darfur region in Sudan to be put in place.

"This is the kind of situation where you send a force rather to help ensure its territorial integrity we need a force to ensure Mali's territorial integrity, independence and sovereignty. We need a force that would be able to move the Tuaregs, not back, but in, so that Tuaregs are part of the making of Mali," he told Xinhua.