Saudi king invites feuding Somali leaders for reconciliation talks

[Jacaylbaro]

MOGADISHU (AFP) - Saudi King Abdullah has invited top Somali leaders to visit in a bid to reconcile them after a power struggle paralysed the government's ability to function properly, an official said Wednesday.

 

 

President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed is pushing parliament to expel Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi on the grounds that he has failed in his duties of ending insurgency raging in the capital Mogadishu, formulating a new constitution and installing a federal system of government.

 

"The president, the prime minister and the parliament speaker have been invited by the Saudi king," Abdullahi Muhidin Ali, spokesman for Gedi, told AFP from the southcentral town of Baidoa.

 

"We have not been officially told why they were invited, but sources say Saudi Arabia is trying to reconcile them."

 

He said Gedi would travel to Saudi Arabia from Ethiopia where he is currently holding talks with officials and foreign diplomats. Ethiopian troops back his government, while Addis Ababa is the seat of the African Union.

 

In September, the three leaders signed a reconciliation accord in the Saudi Red Sea city of Jeddah, following up on an inconclusive peace conference held in Mogadishu the previous month.

 

Somali opposition groups boycotted the August parley, which prompted foreign diplomats to call for a new more inclusive approach to ending the conflict.

 

It was not immediately clear if Yusuf and speaker Aden Mohamed Nur, a former warlord, had accepted the Saudi invitation.

 

Somali lawmakers, sitting in Baidoa about 250 kilometres (155 miles) northwest of Mogadishu, last week failed to start a debate on Gedi's fate.

 

Underlying the power struggle is the kind of clan rivalry that has fuelled seemingly endless and bloody power struggles since Somalia acquired its independence in 1960.

 

Conflict flared after the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre. Since then, Somalia has had no central authority and has defied numerous initiatives to restore stability.

 

Yusuf, a past president of the self-declared northern state of Puntland, is a former warlord from the ***** clan, one of Somalia's two biggest.

 

Gedi is from the other major clan, the ******, which is dominant in Mogadishu. His weak government last year suffered mass resignations which forced him to reshuffle his cabinet.

 

The right to grant licences to prospect for oil and natural gas in the desert country has also caused tension between the two leaders.

 

Gedi was unhappy early this year when Yusuf signed oil exploration accords with several foreign firms without consulting him.

 

In return, the prime minister refused to endorse exploration agreements signed by Puntland authorities, officials say.

 

The fallout between the pair comes as the government is battling Islamist-led insurgents who have been targeting government officials, Ethiopian troops and African Union peacekeepers from Uganda in recent months.

 

On Wednesday, seven civilians were killed and nearly a dozen wounded when a passenger van hit a landmine in northern Mogadishu, one of the most volatile zones in the seaside capital.

 

Insurgents also hurled grenades at the peacekeepers' camp in southern Mogadishu, prompting them to open fire.

 

"After the grenade explosion, Ugandan troops opened fire and wounded two civilians," said witness Mohamed Abdi Ali, a day after three other Ugandan peacekeepers were hurt in a mortar attacks.

 

 

-- AFP