US calls for help for Somalia

2006-08-04 11:02

Washington - The United States on Thursday called on its partners to help shore up Somalia's fragile government after the prime minister refused to resign despite a mass defection of government ministers.

The shaky administration absorbed a new blow on Thursday with prime minister Ali Mohamed Gedi's decision, which followed the defections of 38 ministers who left the 102-member cabinet last week.

State department spokesperson Sean McCormack said: "I would point out that resignations do occur in all types of government."

McCormack said Washington was working with a group of countries including Britain, Sweden, Italy, Norway, Tanzania and the European Union to bolster the Baidoa-based government, but didn't give details.

Islamic militia controls Mogadishu

He said: "What we want to see is an effort by the international community to see what we can do to strengthen those federal institutions that exist right now. But it's a tough problem."

Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed and parliament speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden held private consultations on the crisis earlier on Thursday.

The two had disagreed with Gedi on whether to engage in peace talks with the powerful Islamic militia that now controlled the capital, Mogadishu.

Islamist militias, grouped under the Supreme Islamic Council of Somalia, held sway in much of southern Somalia. They seized Mogadishu in early June after routing US-backed warlords in four months of fighting that claimed at least 360 lives.

The deployment of the Ethiopian forces in Somalia, ostensibly to protect Gedi's government from a potential attack by the Islamists, sharply increased tensions between the Somali factions.

The United Nations, the US and other Western countries had warned that any interference by Somalia's neighbours might scupper efforts to achieve lasting peace in the country, which had been without a functioning central authority since the overthrow of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.

- AFP