A senior official of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) said the group's Mediation and Security Council will hold an emergency meeting on Mali Thursday.
ECOWAS external relations director Abdel-Fatau Musah said the emergency summit will enable the committee to come up with solutions to resolve the rebellion in Mali's north.
"The meeting is to discuss the modalities for intervention… because what is happening in the north of Mali is not only against the territorial integrity of Mali, it is basically a very serious threat to peace and security in the region and international security as a whole," said Musah.
The meeting in Ivory Coast's commercial capital, Abidjan, comes the same day Mali's speaker of parliament Dioncounda Traore is scheduled to be sworn in as interim president.
"We are virtually at the point of resolving the coup d'état issue, and that's the return to constitutional order in the country," said Musah.
"So all attention now is on trying to roll back the gains made by the rebels."
Since last month's military coup in Mali, the rebels, with help from radical Islamic militants, have seized much of the country's north and proclaimed an independent state they called "Azawad".
As part of an agreement with the outgoing military junta, ECOWAS pledged to help Mali fight the Tuareg rebels.
Last week, the ECOWAS Chiefs of Defense Staff Committee developed their strategy for liberating territories in Mali seized by the Tuareg rebels.
Musah expressed confidence in the sub-regional bloc's ability to end the rebellion. He said the group's protocols prohibit a non-consensual breakup of any of its member states.
Musah said ECOWAS has proposed negotiations with the rebels, but he said "the negotiations are conditional on the fact that the question of the territorial integrity of Mali is non-negotiable. And that ECOWAS is never going to have any dialogue with a group that can be referred to as terrorist organizations. They only need to be destroyed, not negotiated with."
Tuareg rebels, who refer to themselves as the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), control the cities of Timbuktu, Gao and other areas in the north.
Musah said ECOWAS' standby force has been on high alert since the coup d'état. He warned the rebels could face harsh military action if they refuse to negotiate to end the rebellion.
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