SANAA, 12 November 2006 — Somalia President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed said yesterday his government were would hold talks the Islamic Courts movement if the movement that controls much of southern Somalia stops fighting with government forces and other factions.
“We are ready for negotiations with the Islamic Courts,” Ahmed told reporters after talks with Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh in Sanaa.
“That would not be possible before the fighting on the ground is halted,” he added.
“We will not accept the Islamic Courts to talk to us with one hand and attack us with the other hand,” Ahmed said.
“Peace and negotiations are much better than violence, but if the aim of the negotiations is to save time, that would be a shameful way of settling things,” he said.
Ahmed refused to comment on a deal signed Friday by the Islamic Courts and a parliamentary delegation led by Speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan to avoid hostilities between the Islamic movement and the interim government. He said he has not yet received any its details.
After a two-hour meeting with Saleh behind closed doors at the presidential palace in Sana’a, Ahmed said his talks with the Yemeni leader were “fruitful.”
Yemen’s official news agency Saba said the talks focused on “boosting efforts for national reconciliation between the (Somali) factions.”
The agency said the Somali president briefed Saleh on “current developments in Somalia in light of efforts being put to bring together the points of views of the government and the Islamic Courts.”
Yemen hosted talks between Ahmed and his rival speaker of the parliament Adan in last January, following which the two men signed a reconciliation pact.
Somalia has been in anarchy without a functional central national government since 1991.
The Islamic Courts have taken control of most of southern parts of Somalia since they seized the capital Mogadishu in last June.
In his remarks upon arrival in Sanaa late on Friday, the Somali leader said he would urge Saleh to exert mediation efforts for “reconciliation in Somalia and a rapprochement of the different points of view of Somali parties.”
