(adds Rice in paragraph 6, WFP in paragraphs 14-17)
By Jack Kimball
ASMARA, Dec 5 (Reuters) - An exiled leader of Somalia's Islamists has rejected a call by Somalia's new prime minister for talks to try to end 16 years of conflict and stem a year-long insurgency that has killed some 6,000 civilians.
"Our problem is not with the old prime minister or the new prime minister. Our problem is Ethiopia's occupation," Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, who is now chairman of the opposition Alliance For the Re-Liberation of Somalia (ARS), told Reuters.
Ahmed's Islamist courts' movement ruled Mogadishu for six months last year, until it was routed by Ethiopia's army backing forces from the interim Somali government.
"If the Ethiopian occupation is removed then everything is possible. But before that, it would be fruitless to speak about talks between the prime minister and the opposition," Ahmed added in an interview in Eritrea late on Tuesday.
Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein has had a rocky start since being appointed 11 days ago. Five ministers have already quit the cabinet he named at the weekend, in a blow to plans to unify a government paralysed by nearly three years of in-fighting.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, on a brief trip to sub-Saharan Africa, was due to meet Hussein in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa late on Wednesday. She is expected to appeal to him to be more inclusive in forming his new government.
Hussein took over from Ali Mohamed Gedi, who quit after a feud with the president that frustrated their Western backers.
On Tuesday, a security official said President Abdullahi Yusuf -- a long-surviving liver transplant patient -- was in "serious condition" in a Nairobi hospital.
But his doctors played down the health threat.
Ahmed, who has been seen as a relative moderate among the Islamists, declined to say what, if any, would be the consequences of Yusuf's illness.
Ethiopia's enemy, Eritrea, backs Sharif's ARS movement, which is an umbrella Somali opposition group of Islamists, former parliamentarians and diaspora members.
Hardline Islamists have led an insurgency against the government and Ethiopian troops throughout 2007. A rights group said this week nearly 6,000 civilians had died in fighting in Mogadishu, which has also seen a massive refugee exodus.
U.N. officials say the humanitarian crisis in Somalia is Africa's worst with red tape and restictions hampering the supply of aid to hundreds of thousands uprooted by the fighting.
Restrictions on U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) supplies to the Lower Shabelle region were lifted on Wednesday, a day after the Somali government blocked two shiploads of food to the area.
Regional governor Abdulqadir Sheikh Mohamed said the government security agency had reached an agreement with WFP.
"The relief aid has been allowed again, and now there are two WFP vessels at the port of Marka. There are two French warships escorting these two WFP ships," he told Reuters.
A WFP official in Nairobi confirmed the ban was lifted. (Additional reporting by Aweys Yusuf; Editing by Katie Nguyen and Richard Balmforth)
SOURCE: Reuters, December 5, 2007