Somalia joins Sanaa Forum states

[General Duke]

Somalia joins Sanaa Forum states

Tuesday December 28th, 2004 00:43.

 

Abdullahi Yusuf

 

KHARTOUM, Dec 27, 2004 (Sudan TV) -- Somalia has become the fourth regional state to formally join the Sanaa Forum for Cooperation, a regional grouping that brings together Yemen, Ethiopia and Sudan.

 

Announcing the news at a press conference in Khartoum, broadcast live on Sudanese TV, at the end of a one-day summit of the Sanaa Forum states, the president of Somalia, Abdullah Yusuf Ahmad, said it was "absolutely natural" for Somalia to be invited to join the grouping and urged the regional states to support his government.

 

"Somalia, as everybody knows, is a part and parcel of this region. Joining this Sanaa Forum is absolutely natural and Somalia gains a lot of things, because we have no any trouble or any conflict with our neighbours in the region.

 

"Somalia needs all nations of this region in this difficult moment of its history. Of course, Somalia needs political, military and financial support from regional states, and all over the world. For these reasons, joining this forum is for the ultimate interest of all us, and particularly for Somalia," President Ahmad said, speaking in English.

 

Material from the BBC Monitoring Service

 

http://www.sudantribune.com/article.php3?id_article=7234

[General Duke]

Yemen insists Sanaa Grouping must expand for sake of peace

 

Admitting Somalia, Djibouti, Eritrea to regional club 'will remove misunderstanding'

 

The president of Yemen on Monday called on Djibouti, Eritrea and Somalia to join the Sanaa Grouping of Red Sea and Horn of Africa nations to promote reconciliation and peace in the region.

 

The call by President Ali Abdullah Saleh was immediately welcomed by Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, whose country fought a bitter two-and-a-half-year border war with Eritrea that ended in a precarious cease-fire.

 

Speaking at the opening of a Sanaa Grouping summit in Khartoum, Saleh said: "I hereby call for admitting Somalia, Djibouti and Eritrea into our Sanaa Group as this will be of benefit to all of us and will realize security and stability to our peoples."

 

The two-year-old Sanaa Grouping, named after the Yemeni capital, comprises Ethiopia, Sudan and Yemen and is aimed at enhancing security, political and economic cooperation in the volatile region.

 

Admitting the three states into the group "will remove the causes of misunderstanding and dispel doubts between the neighbors," Saleh said, referring to Asmara's strained ties with both Ethiopia and Sudan.

 

Ethiopia's Meles said his country was ready to normalize ties with all neighboring states, commenting that dialogue must always come after any conflict.

 

Tensions between Ethiopia and Eritrea remain acute. Last September, Ethiopia rejected a demarcation proposal made by an independent border commission, leading to warnings by the Eritrean government that this would lead to war "sooner or later" with Ethiopia.

 

Saleh announced later he would embark on an initiative of normalising Eritrea's relations with both Ethiopia and Sudan after the leaders of all three countries accepted the offer. The Egyptian agency Mena also reported from Cairo that Ethiopia had asked Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to mediate in its dispute with Eritrea.

 

Meanwhile, the Yemeni leader also suggested that an African Union or UN peacekeeping force should be deployed to restore of peace and stability in war-torn Somalia.

 

"We call for sending African Union or United Nations troops to Mogadishu for restoration of peace and stability in Somalia," said Saleh.

 

Addressing a separate issue, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir said that his government and the country's main southern rebel group will sign a peace agreement by the end of the year to end more than 20 years of civil war.

 

"The final peace agreement will be signed during the remaining days of this year," Bashir told the summit meeting.

 

Gutbi al-Mahdi, a political adviser to Bashir, told the official Sudan Media Center last week that the agreement would be signed Jan. 10 in the Presidential Palace in Nairobi. It was not clear if the signing date had been changed since Mahdi's statement.

 

Bashir said he hoped the summit meeting and the peace agreement with rebels would be "an example for achieving security and stability in the region."

 

At the end of the summit, the leaders pledged "sincere" commitment to attaining durable peace, security and sustainable development in the Horn of Africa and Southern Red Sea regions.

 

The Sudanese government and the Sudan People's Liberation Army had pledged to finalize an agreement to end the longest-running war in Africa by Dec. 31, making a commitment last month before the UN Security Council, which held a rare meeting in Nairobi to spur the peace talks.

 

The north-south war has pitted Sudan's Islamic-dominated government against rebels seeking greater autonomy and a greater share of the country's wealth for the Christian and animist south. The conflict is blamed for more than two million deaths, primarily from war-induced famine and disease.

 

UN and U.S. officials are hoping that a solution to the civil war - which will include a new constitution and power-sharing government for Sudan - will spur an end to the separate conflict between government-backed forces and rebels in the western Darfur region. Fighting in Darfur has killed 70,000 people and driven 1.8 million from their homes. - Agencies