Wednesday, November 01, 2006
After both sides failed to meet face-to-face in three days of Arab League-sponsored discussions in Sudan, the Islamists called for a delay and an international fact-finding mission to be sent to the chaotic country to resolve "fundamental issues."
Mediators including the Arab League, European Union and African Union said in a statement later that more consultation was needed and urged both parties to exercise restraint.
The international community was committed "to continue assisting [them] in sustaining their talks in Khartoum as soon as possible upon consultation with all the parties," it said.
"The parties are urged to exercise full restraint and commit themselves to previous agreements," including ceasing military and media campaigns and respecting principles of peaceful co-existence and noninterference in others' internal affairs."
The government's foreign minister, Ismail Hurre Buba, had earlier denounced the Islamists as no longer partners for peace.
"I think it's more likely than not ... that is a miscalculation that maybe the Islamists are making," he told Reuters in London when asked whether war was likely.
"These are people who want the area to explode," he added, referring to the Islamists. "I'm sure that the Somali people will join together to end this kind of madness."
The head of the Arab League delegation, Samir Hosni, said a new timetable for talks would be announced in "a week or two."
The third round of talks in Khartoum had been seen as the best chance of averting more conflict in Somalia.
But the efforts of a posse of diplomats from the Arab League, Europe, the United Nations and the east African regional body IGAD made little or no headway.
The Islamists had arrived saying there would be no talks at all unless Ethiopian troops they say are in Somalia to prop up the fragile, Western-backed government were withdrawn.
"We request our colleagues to temporarily suspend the talks ... because Ethiopia has declared war and invaded Somalia," said Ibrahim Hussein Adow, head of the Islamist team.
"We are in a war situation and Ethiopia has initiated this. ... We want the world to take a stand against Ethiopia."
There was no word from the government delegation in Khartoum on whether they would agree to postpone the talks.
The government and Mogadishu-based Islamists are vying for control of the nation, sunken in anarchy since the 1991 toppling of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
The Islamists sprang from a union of Islamic sharia courts and came to prominence after defeating U.S.-backed warlords in Mogadishu in June.
Contacted by telephone in Baidoa, Information Minister Ali Jama Jangali said the Islamists were "time-wasting."
"We will not allow such time-wasting. They are buying time to seize more towns. This is very unfortunate. Nobody can take Somalia at the barrel of a gun," he told Reuters. "The fact-finding mission they're talking about will not be allowed."
The government of President Abdullahi Yusuf, a former warlord and colonel in the Somali army whom diplomats say may favor a military solution, insists it has the international recognition and legal right to rule the country of 10 million.
But its power on the ground pales to the Islamists, whose disciplined fighters have taken much of south and central Somalia and imposed strict sharia law.
Security experts believe Addis Ababa has sent about 5,000 soldiers to help Somalia's government. Ethiopia insists it has only several hundred armed military trainers in Somalia.
Analysts say a war between the militarily superior Islamists and the government could draw in Ethiopia and its archrival Eritrea, inflaming long-held regional grudges.
Source: Reuters, Nov. 1, 2006