The African Union on Monday named members of a panel of heads of state tasked with finding a solution to the leadership crisis in Ivory Coast.

The panel is to be headed by Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, who chairs the AU Peace and Security Council, according to Noureddine Mezni, the spokesman for AU Commission chief Jean Ping.

The other members were named as Presidents Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso, Idriss Deby of Chad, Jacob Zuma of South Africa and Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania, Mezni told AFP in Addis Ababa where the bloc is holding a summit.

"The chairperson (Abdel Aziz) is meeting with his colleagues to discuss the programme because they have to move and they have only one month. The programme of work will be discussed today," Mezni said.

He added that the panel would travel to Ivory Coast at a date which has yet to be fixed.

The five-member panel is to be accompanied by Ping and by James Victor Gbeho, the president of the commission of the Economic Community of West African States.

The AU on Friday said the panel was expected to come up with binding resolutions, within a month, to resolve the two-month-old power struggle in Ivory Coast between incumbent strongman Laurent Gbagbo and Alassane Ouattara, the internationally recognised winner of disputed November elections.