EU ambassadors meet over Chad

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union ambassadors held a meeting on Sunday in the light of street fighting in Chad's capital, but made no decision on the bloc's peacekeeping force to the African nation, EU president Slovenia and diplomats said.

Last month EU ministers agreed to send up to 3,700 troops from the 27-nation bloc to eastern Chad to protect civilians and aid workers caught up in the violence in the neighboring Sudanese region of Darfur.

On Sunday troops and army helicopters loyal to Chad's President Idriss Deby were striking back at rebels besieging the presidential palace in N'Djamena.

"The situation is being monitored carefully. The Political and Security Committee will review again what's happening there on Tuesday," an EU presidency spokeswoman said.

The PSC took no decisions, an EU diplomat added.

"Nobody questioned the sending of the peacekeeping force," the EU diplomat said.

It would be up to Irish Major General Pat Nash, head of the peacekeeping force, to decide when it should be deployed on the ground, the EU presidency spokeswoman said.

The EU said last Friday the "increased instability" meant the deployment of the first European troops was being delayed, with flights of Irish troops postponed.

Ireland's defense minister Willie O'Dea told public broadcaster RTE on Friday: "I see this is as an interruption rather than a cancellation of the deployment."

(Reporting by Huw Jones, editing by Matthew Jones)