Italy presses Ethiopia to pull out troops from Somalia

Sunday, May 20, 2007

NAIROBI (AFP) - The Italian government on Saturday pressed Ethiopian troops to pull out from lawless Somalia and urged the rival factions there to observe a truce ahead of a key reconciliation conference in June.

During a one-day trip to Mogadishu, Italy's Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Patrizia Sentinelli held talks with Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf and Prime Minster Ali Mohamed Gedi.

"I expressed the position of my government that Ethiopian troops must withdraw," she told a press conference in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, after visiting Rome's former colony.

"For this reason, I stressed something the Italian government has always said: the strengthening of the AMISOM (African Mission to Somalia)."

Ethiopian forces were deployed last year and helped Somali troops expel the Islamists movement from southern and central Somalia at the start of the year.

But the insurgents continued with attacks that culminated in two offensives by Ethiopia-Somali forces in March and April that killed at least 1,400 people, according to Mogadishu's dominant Hawiye clan elders and a local rights panel.

Apart from the face-to-face fighting, dozens of people -- including peacekeepers -- have been killed and scores wounded in separate attacks since then, mainly by homemade bombs and grenades.

"Security can only be realised through a ceasefire ... the problem of insecurity must be addressed in a correct manner," Sentinelli added.

She urged the Somali leaders to ensure that a June 14 peace conference included the defeated Islamists.

But Yusuf has maintained that the Islamist leaders will only participate if they come as clan representatives, a position they refuse.

"I presented on behalf of the Italian government one main request. That the reconciliation conference really be conducted in an all-inclusive manner," added Sentinelli, the only top Italian envoy to visit Somalia in recent years.

At least 1,500 African Union peacekeepers from Uganda, who are currently in Mogadishu, are due to take over from Ethiopian forces.

Somalia, a nation of 10 million, has been reduced to violence since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre sparked a bloody power struggle that has defied numerous attempts to restore stability.

Source: AFP, May 20, 2007