7 April 2001
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia — Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin Friday reiterated his government's commitment to help bring "durable peace and stability" to neighbouring Somalia.
Seyoum made the remarks during talks with a visiting special envoy of Sudanese president and current chairman of the sub-regional grouping IGAD, Gen. Omal el Bashir.
The special envoy, Sudanese minister of state for foreign affairs, Ali Nimeiri, is visiting member states of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development in search of political solution to the standoff in Somalia.
The eighth IGAD summit, held in Khartoum in March, mandated member states, particularly Somalia neighbours, to seek a political solution to the conflict and bring all parties to the negotiating table, according to a source at the Sudanese embassy in Addis Ababa.
Somalia's eight-month old transitional government of President Addigassim Salad Hassan continues to face stiff opposition from warlords who have continued to divide the country into various spheres of armed chiefdoms even after the formation of the transitional government.
Nimeiri met Somali warlords that had set up the so-called Somali Reconciliation and Restoration Council (SRRC), chaired by warlord Hussein Mohamed Aideed, whose stated purpose it to establish within six months "an all-inclusive reconciliation conference (within Somalia) and the establishment of a legitimate transitional government of national unity."
The source said Nimieri held talks with the executives of the SRRC "to hear their views." The SRRC was set up after two weeks of consultations among the warlords in Awassa, 275 km south of Addis Ababa.
The warlords said they were united in their opposition to Somalia's transitional government, claiming it was "not representative" of all Somalis.
The OAU, the UN and the international community, however, have recognised the transitional government, which was set up after the mediation of Djibouti last year.
This wide recognition of the transitional government may have alarmed the warlords who decided to set up the SRRC as bargaining chip into Somali's ongoing power struggle, observers said.
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