MOGADISHU, Oct 31: Negotiators scrambled on Tuesday to salvage peace talks aimed at averting all-out war between Somalia's powerful Islamists and its weak government as the deeply divided sides both threatened to quit.In a last-ditch bid to keep the Khartoum negotiations from collapsing even before they begin, international observers proposed Sudan as sole mediator in a compromise intended to overcome Islamist objections to Kenya, diplomats said.
But in a blow to their hopes, the government immediately rejected the proposal, the chances for success of which had been uncertain as it did not address the Islamists' main demand for the withdrawal of Ethiopian troops.
With the two sides girding for battle and growing fears that the Horn of Africa could be embroiled in regional conflict, the UN special envoy for Somalia, Francois Fall, refused to give up on the talks.
“It is too early to say the peace conference is collapsing,” he told reporters at the venue in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum. “There are a lot problems facing the conference which will gradually be resolved.”
Mr Fall said he was hopeful the “stalemate” could be overcome and said the proposal to replace the Arab League and Kenya with a sole mediator, Sudan, was a “positive development” and one idea on a “menu of options” on the table.
The Sudan proposal was put forward by the African Union, Arab League, the east African regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), United Nations and the US-inspired International Contact Group on Somalia.
All fear a failure of the talks could lead to a full-scale war that risks engulfing the region, possibly drawing in arch-foe neighbours Ethiopia and Eritrea.
But the Somali government rejected the idea, insisting a role for Kenya, which was named co-mediator this month after government officials accused the Arab League, which ran two previous rounds of talks, of Islamist bias.
“We are not ready to accept the change of the mediation policy laid down before us,” Somali government delegation chief and deputy prime minister Abdullahi Sheikh Ismail said.
The Islamists have threatened to leave Khartoum unless thousands of Ethiopian troops they say are deployed in Somalia pull out and Kenya, which they accuse of pro-government bias, is removed as a mediator.
Diplomats had hoped a compromise on mediation would ease the hardline Islamist stance on Ethiopia, which they have accused of declaring war on them and against which they have themselves called for holy war.
A source close to the Islamist delegation declined to comment on a possible change to the Ethiopia demand but said they would likely accept Sudan as sole mediator.
The stalemate has sent tensions soaring between the two sides as their forces ready for clashes near the government's temporary seat of Baidoa, where the Islamists say the Ethiopian troops have been sent.
Mainly Christian Ethiopia denies reports it has as many as 8,000 soldiers in Somalia but acknowledges sending military advisers to help protect the government from `jihadists’.
Along with Kenya, Ethiopia also backs the deployment of an African Union-endorsed IGAD peacekeeping mission to help the Somali government, the limited authority of which is under serious threat from the Islamists.—AFP
