Somalia’s transitional president on Friday ruled out talks with Islamists in control of the capital, claiming they had broken an earlier agreement and planned to seize more territory.
The two sides had been due to meet in Sudan on Saturday for a second round of talks aimed at resolving differences that threaten to further engulf the lawless nation in conflict, but the government said it would not attend.
Even as an Islamist team left Mogadishu for Khartoum to show commitment to the talks, President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed said the movement could not be trusted because they had violated a truce and mutual recognition pact.
”The courts violated the previous agreement signed in Khartoum,” he told lawmakers in Baidoa, where the transitional government is based due to insecurity in Mogadishu.
”The most important parts [of the agreement] were the recognition of each other and cessation of hostilities,” Yusuf said, maintaining that Islamic militia had violated both provisions and planned further advances.
He said the Islamists, who he claimed had replaced ”moderates” with ”extremists” in their leadership, were plotting to ”attack Baidoa and the southern port of Kismayo”.
”Therefore, I don’t see the use of meeting them in Khartoum again,” Yusuf said. ”This is not the time to meet them. We will find better solutions. I don’t see the value of meeting warriors.”
In Mogadishu, however, a 15-strong delegation from the Supreme Islamic Council of Somalia (SICS) boarded a plane to Khartoum on the first flight out of the bullet-scarred city’s Esiley International airport since 1995.
”We are interested in getting peace,” chief negotiator Ibrahim Hassan Adow told reporters before leaving with his team and a group of officials from the Arab League, which is sponsoring the talks in Sudan.
”That is why we are heading for negotiations,” he said. ”The Islamic courts will not make any preconditions to make the peace process move. Our commitment to peace is very strong.”
The meeting in Khartoum was an element of international efforts to restore peace and stability to Somalia, which has been without a functioning central authority since 1991, and end competition to fill the power vacuum.
On June 22, the two sides signed a preliminary accord after the Islamists routed a United States-backed alliance of warlords in fierce battles for control of Mogadishu that alarmed many.
At the time, the two sides agreed to meet again on July 15 to thrash out security and governance arrangements, but since then the Islamists have further expanded their territory, drawing charges they violated the deal.
Just this week, the Islamic militia routed the last remaining lone warlord in Mogadishu, took control of the city’s main port and demanded that all government property and facilities be turned over to them.
The rise of the Islamist alliance has caused concern in Washington, which says it fears a Taliban-style takeover of Somalia.
The US, other Western countries and the United Nations have all backed the Arab League initiative to bring the Islamists and the government together in a bid to prevent them descending into conflict.
But the two sides are embroiled in longstanding disputes, notably over the possible deployment of foreign peacekeepers to help support the government, something Yusuf avidly backs and the Islamists vehemently oppose.
Such a deployment came closer on Thursday when the UN Security Council approved an easing of the arms embargo on Somalia in support of an African Union request to help support a regional peacekeeping mission.
Yusuf on Friday welcomed the move, calling it ”a good step” and blasting those opposed, including the Islamists who have vowed to resist and fight any foreign troops on Somali soil.
”Those who reject the deployment have other motives and we should think of that,” he told the lawmakers. — AFP
