Somali Leader Seeks Help in Cease-Fire Agreement

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ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — Somalia has a “window of opportunity” to end its 17-year civil war and needs help from the international community to enforce a cease-fire agreed upon last month, Prime Minister Hussein said.

“If not properly implemented it will not meet expectations created by the signing of this agreement,” Mr. Hussein told reporters yesterday in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. “We hope that the agreement opens a new page for Somalia.”

Somalia’s transitional federal government and the opposition Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia signed a preliminary cease-fire agreement on June 9 in Djibouti. The accord calls for the withdrawal of Ethiopian troops, who have occupied parts of Somalia in support of the government since December 2006, and their replacement by a U.N. peacekeeping force.

Somalia has been wracked by violence since the government ejected Islamic fighters from southern and central areas in January 2007. The United Nations estimates 1 million Somalis have been displaced within the country as people flee fighting between the Islamists and the Ethiopian-backed forces.

Islamists from the al-Shabaab militia rejected last month’s agreement and continued attacks on the troops.

Mr. Hussein said that he hoped the preliminary cease-fire agreement will be concluded “very soon” at a meeting in Saudi Arabia. He didn’t elaborate.

Under terms of the agreement, militias loyal to the transitional government and the ARS are to stop fighting within 30 days of the truce becoming final. Ethiopian forces that helped oust the Islamic Courts Union government from Mogadishu are then to withdraw within four months and be replaced by a U.N. peacekeeping force.


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