Brussels - The European Union on Monday welcomed a ceasefire agreement in Somalia, while NATO said it had successfully completed its first anti-piracy mission off the Somali coast.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer stressed the importance of cooperation between the two Brussels-based institutions during a regular meeting of ambassadors at the alliance's headquarters.

One area in which the two organizations are working together is in the fight against pirates operating in the Gulf of Aden.

While the EU's own operations are to begin shortly, de Hoop Scheffer announced that NATO had just completed its first anti-piracy mission by escorting a cargo ship delivering supplies to the African Union Mission to Somalia.

The NATO chief said NATO warships would next be escorting World Food Programme (WFP) cargos delivering food aid to the region.

"The operation is moving well, and the contacts we are having with the EU are also good," de Hoop Scheffer said.

Solana, for his part, welcomed a ceasefire agreement clinched over the weekend by the Somali government and parts of the Islamist opposition.

"This agreement is an important step forward," Solana said in a statement issued by his office in Brussels.

"Only an inclusive political process will bring durable peace to Somalia, and I call on all Somalis to rally behind the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia and the Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia and their endeavour to achieve this," the statement said.

Political instability has played a major role in preventing Somalia from stopping gangs of pirates from seizing commercial vessels sailing off the country's coast, prompting foreign organizations and nations to intervene.

The EU and NATO also operate missions in other parts of the world, including Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

And Solana and de Hoop Scheffer voiced concern at the increasingly divisive "rhetoric" being aired by the Bosnia's rivalrous ethnic leaders, warning that it risked undermining the country's aspiration to become a member of both NATO and the EU.

"It is necessary that they keep on working together to stabilize the country and move with the reforms that have to be done. That will be the only way in which they can join the institutions that they claim they want to join," Solana said. (dpa)