Islamic militia in Somalia rebuffs U.N. call for talks

MOGADISHU, Somalia – The leader of the Islamic militia that has taken hold of southern Somalia on Tuesday rebuffed a U.N. plan for peace talks with the government, saying he will not negotiate until the government expels all foreign troops.

“Until Ethiopian troops leave Somali soil, we will never negotiate with the government,” said Islamic militia leader Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys.

Both Somali government leaders and Ethiopia’s Foreign Ministry have denied Ethiopian soldiers were in Somalia. However, many witnesses have confirmed their presence, in uniform.

Tuesday’s statement by Aweys was the latest downward turn in an increasingly difficult international effort to negotiate peace between the powerful Islamic militants and the weak government, which has international support but no military.

It came as a U.N. envoy was in Somalia on Tuesday trying to arrange peace talks in Sudan aimed at avoiding more fighting in Somalia and a potentially bigger conflagration.

While Aweys, who has been accused by Somali secular leaders and the West of links to al-Qaida, ruled out any talks, a more moderate member of his Supreme Islamic Courts Council left open the possibility.

After meeting in Mogadishu with Francois Lonseny Fall, the U.N. special representative to Somalia, Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed said the group’s “peace committee” still had to consider the United Nations’ call for negotiations, which would be held next week in Khartoum.

In an apparent acknowledgement that Ethiopian troops were complicating peace efforts, Fall told reporters: “The U.N. is always calling on maximum restraint from neighboring countries and for them not to interfere at this particular moment in Somalia.”

The troops from neighboring Ethiopia crossed into Somalia five days ago to protect Somalia’s government at Baidoa, 150 miles northwest of Mogadishu, from advancing Islamic militants. The arrival of the Ethiopians heightened tensions among Somalis because Ethiopia, a largely Christian country, is the longtime enemy of Somalia, which is mostly Muslim.

A round of peace talks that had been scheduled Saturday fell apart when the government refused to attend and the Islamic group walked out. The government and the fundamentalist Islamic militias reached a “nonaggression pact” in June, but the Islamic group has made clear that it sees itself as the country’s main authority.

The Islamic militia’s seizure of power has prompted grave concerns in the United States, which accuses the group of harboring al-Qaida leaders responsible for deadly 1998 bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.