Monday, September 17, 2007
President Abdullahi Yusuf, Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi and parliament speaker Adam Mohamed Nur signed an agreement in the presence of Saudi King Abdullah in the city of Jeddah late on Sunday.
"No to war, yes to peace. No to bloodshed and yes to reconciliation," Yusuf told the meeting, according to Saudi newspapers on Monday.
The pact, which aimed to create reconciliation among some tribes, came after a weeks-long reconciliation conference in Mogadishu.
It also came days after a rival meeting in Eritrea by an opposition alliance that included leaders of the Islamic courts movement forced from power in Somalia with Ethiopian and U.S. backing.
The transition government has been struggling to quell the Islamist insurgency following a December military rout, which has turned parts of Mogadishu into a war zone and triggered a refugee crisis.
Earlier this year, the African Union agreed to dispatch 8,000 peacekeepers to Somalia to replace pro-government Ethiopian troops whose presence has inflamed the insurgency. So far, however, fewer than half the AU troops have arrived.
"We need Arab and African peacekeeping forces in our country under the aegis of the United Nations," Yusuf said.
The U.N. Security Council last month asked the secretary-general's office to develop plans for a possible U.N. troop presence in Somalia.
Saudi Arabia welcomed Yusuf's "assurances" that foreign forces would be replaced. It was not clear if this was a reference to Ethiopian troops.
Washington fears the Islamist rebel movement could give al Qaeda a foothold in the Horn of Africa nation which had been in chaos since the fall of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.
There are also fears the Somalia conflict could trigger a wider war. Arch foes Eritrea and Ethiopia have lined up on opposite sides of the conflict, with Eritrea backing the opposition and Ethiopia the government.
Source: Reuters, Sept 17, 2007