UN may ease arms embargo
2006-07-12 07:30
New York - The United Nations security council may be willing to consider a peacekeeping force for Somalia and easing an arms embargo so the shattered nation's transitional government can develop a security force, according to a proposed council statement circulated by Britain.
The statement said that if the council believed a "peace support mission" would help Somalia, it would consider a detailed proposal from either the African Union or the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, an organisation of several Horn of Africa nations.
At the same time, the draft statement would emphasise the council's belief that the arms embargo now in place did contribute to security.
Council 'can ease the arms embargo'
The draft statement said: "The security council reiterates its intention to consider urgently how to strengthen the effectiveness of the arms embargo."
Such statements must be agreed to by the entire council and were not legally binding. Council support for a peace mission was necessary because only the council could ease the arms embargo that would allow them to go in.
Somalia had been without effective government since 1991. But, Islamic militias wrested Mogadishu and some other areas of the country from a United States-backed secular alliance of warlords last month, bringing weeks of relative calm to a city that had seen little more than chaos in recent years.
The volatile nation had been a particular concern to the US, which had long-standing fears that Somalia would become a refuge for members of Osama bin Laden's terrorist network, much like Afghanistan did in the late 1990s.
The council statement would demand "complete and unhindered" humanitarian access and guarantees of aid workers' safety.
- AP