CITES requires that governments set up systems to monitor illegal killing of elephants, register their stocks, and establish national legislation and domestic controls before they can sell their stocks.

Kenya said the countries had not yet met all these conditions.

Ivory trade was prohibited worldwide in 1989 after the African elephant population halved to 600,000 in just over a decade. Kenya says the ban has saved the elephant population across the continent from further decimation.

"We feel Kenya's stand over the years should continue. Any trade in ivory must be regulated, otherwise it will trigger off a massacre of the remaining African elephants," Environment Minister Newton Kulundu said.

The east African country said it would rally other African countries to push for the ban on ivory trade to stay in place at the next CITES conference in Thailand later in the year.

Kenya has its own stash of 30 tonnes of ivory tusks confiscated from poachers or curved from dead elephants.

Kulundu said seven African countries - Uganda, Mali, Ghana, Ethiopia, Tunisia, Cameroon and the Central African Republic - had agreed to support Kenya's position. The seven countries attended a meeting on the ivory trade in Nairobi this week.

He said Kenya would organize a gathering of 30 countries to convince them to support Kenya's stance at the CITES meeting.