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ABIDJAN, Jan 30 (Reuters) - Ivory Coast's striking police said on Wednesday they would resume work and publicly apologised after some of its members fired protest shots in the air.

A police spokesman said after talks with the government all members of the force, who went on strike over pay, should go back to work on Thursday.

"Policemen offer their apologies to the prime minister for the actions carried out over the past few days," said Sergeant Erneste Irie Bi Cehi.

Many policemen had been striking since Tuesday in the West African country, where many are still uneasy after a 1999 coup which began with an army pay dispute and set off two years of political turmoil.

Junior policemen said their demand for salaries equivalent to those of soldiers and paramilitary gendarmes had only been met for senior officers and not for those on the ground.

Some fired gunshots in the air in the main city Abidjan on Tuesday night and early on Wednesday, ignoring a call by Interior Minister Emile Boga Doudou to return to barracks.

Protesting policemen also took control of an army depot in Abidjan's teeming suburb of Yopougon.

Wednesday's talks between policemen and the government's top ministers were tense, witnesses said. Some junior officers walked out of the meeting before it ended.

The two sides agreed on the setting up of a committee which would examine the pay demands. Nampa-Reuters

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