Somalia reconciliation talks postponed: minister

Saturday, April 07, 2007

DUBAI (AFP) - A Somali reconciliation conference due to have been held later this month has been postponed until May, Foreign Minister Ismail Mohamed Hurre said in remarks published on Saturday.

The minister from the Ethiopian-backed interim government added that there would be no place at the conference table for the Islamic courts militia, which was expelled from Mogadishu in December.

"The transitional government wants reconciliation, and to this end organised a conference for April 16. However this has been postponed to next month until certain material conditions can be met," Hurre told the Arabic-language daily Asharq Al-Awsat.

He said there was "no question of any involvement of or participation by the Islamic courts" in the conference.

The powerful militia was ousted from south and central Somalia, inmcluding the capital, at the turn of the year in a Ethiopian-backed offensive.

Hurre said that since then the Islamic Courts "have left the political arena" in Somalia and that "when we arrive at a constitutional phase, they can found a political party."

Somalia needs around 42.2 million dollars (32 million euros) to organise the reconciliation conference, but some potential donors have made aid conditional on moderate Islamists also being invited.

"If some people insist that the Islamic courts take part in negotiations, that would mean the involvement of former warlords in a solution" in Somalia, Hurre said without elaborating.

With the 1991 overthrow of dictator Siad Barre, the Horn of Africa country was plunged into civil war pitting rival clans and warlords against each other and featuring periodic famines and an unsuccessful US intervention in 1993.

The Islamists seized Mogadishu from warlords last June after months of fierce fighting and rapidly expanded their territory, enforcing strict Sharia law until they were ejected from the capital by Ethiopian-backed forces.

The transitional government is now trying to restore order, but for several weeks clashes with Islamists have resulted in hundreds of deaths in Mogadishu.

Hurre has blamed the fighting on "elements of the Islamic Courts and international jihadists who are trying to prevent the government from controlling Mogadishu and Somalia."

US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer arrived in Somalia on Saturday for talks with the president and prime minister in the first visit for several years by a top US official.

Source: AFP, April 07, 2007