Africa
Somalia’s president says Ethiopia ‘independent’ to remove troops
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Nov 18, 2008 - 11:31:58 AM

TRIPOLI, Libya Nov 18 (Garowe Online) - Somalia’s interim President Abdullahi Yusuf has said that the Ethiopian government is ‘independent’ in its decision to withdraw its troops from Somalia.

During a Tuesday interview with the VOA Somali Service, President Yusuf suggested that the ongoing feud with Prime Minister Nur “Adde” Hassan Hussein has not deteriorated relations with Ethiopian leaders.

“Ethiopia has the independent choice to withdraw [from Somalia] if this is in the interests of regional security,” said President Yusuf, who is on an official trip to Tripoli, Libya.

The Somali president has reportedly met with Libyan leader Col. Muammar Qadafi at State House in Tripoli, but no information was available following their private meeting.

President Yusuf’s comments – which seem to welcome Ethiopian army withdrawal – come on the heels of a widening rift within the Somali transitional government, with Prime Minister Nur Adde leading a government faction.

The Somali leader has been attributed to recent comments that there is “no government” in Somalia, after he categorically refused to endorse the Prime Minister’s new Cabinet. READ: PM defiantly appoints new Cabinet

Somalia, in the Horn of Africa, has been mired in armed conflict since the early 1990s, with warlord and armed clans vying for power and resources.

Ethiopian troops backing Yusuf’s interim government who invaded the country two years ago were immediately bogged down in an Islamist-led rebellion that now controls most of the country’s central and southern regions.

The African Union has failed to complete a planned 8,000-strong peacekeeping force, while Islamist hardliners have rejected a UN-brokered peace deal signed last month.

Source: Garowe Online