Friday, November 10, 2006
The move came at the end of a trip to Islamist-held Mogadishu by influential parliament chief Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden but prospects for the bid were far from certain as the government had strongly disapproved of Aden's mission.
"We have agreed to stop current hostilities and avoid any activities that would heighten tensions between the government and the Islamic courts," the two sides said in a joint Somali-language statement released here.
"We therefore agreed to continue the peace talks agreed by both sides to take place in the Sudanese capital Khartoum organised by the Arab League and the government of Sudan," it said, without giving a start date.
Aden is one of few politicians respected by both sides but has clashed with the government over how to deal with the Islamists, who seized Mogadishu from warlords in June and now control much of southern and central Somalia.
He travelled to Mogadishu on Sunday with 40 of 275 members of parliament after the collapse earlier this month of the last round of talks in Khartoum, hoping to prevent all-out war that many fear could engulf the Horn of Africa.
Officials said Aden would soon present the proposal to government officials in their base in the town of Baidoa, about 250 kilometers (155 miles) northwest of Mogadishu, outside of which the rival camps are girding for battle.
Fighters from both sides were still on high alert Friday at front line positions about 60 kilometers east of Baidoa near the town of Burhakaba, according to residents of the area.
Officials in Baidoa, the only area of Somalia controlled by the government, could not immediately be reached for comment, but have in the past dismissed Aden's peace bid as "futile."
The Khartoum talks failed on November 1 when the Islamists refused to talk with the government until Ethiopia withdraws thousands of troops they say are in Somalia to back the government and the removal of Kenya as co-mediator.
Ethiopia, which admits to having several hundred military advisers helping the government, and Kenya both support the administration's call for Islamist-opposed regional peacekeepers and the easing of a UN arms embargo.
The statement signed by Aden's delegation and the Islamists expressly calls on the United Nations not to alter the oft-violated 1992 embargo in favor of the government or a peacekeeping mission.
"We are opposed to the lifting of the arms embargo because, if it is lifted, it will spark new conflict that will have effects in the entire region," it said.
In addition to objecting to embargo charges, it also differs substantially from government demands for the resumption of talks, notably that they not be solely mediated by Arab League, which officials accuse of Islamist bias.
The Islamists, some of whom are accused of Al-Qaeda links, have declared a "jihad," or holy war, on Ethiopian soldiers in the Somalia and have threatened the same against any foreign troops that enter the country.
Somalia has been without a functioning central authority since the 1991 ousting of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre and the two-year-old transitional government has been unable to assert control.
Source: AFP, Nov 10, 2006