Kenya: Country to Mediate Between Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia

Kenya will mediate on a new crisis between Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia following Friday's open exchange of animosities between Eritrea and Somalia over the escalating conflict in the Horn of Africa.

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki, who chairs the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), has designated his Foreign Minister Raphael Tuju to hold meetings between the two countries in a bid to reach a solution to the growing crisis.

Eritrean authorities Friday denied accusations by Somalia and United States that it was supporting insurgents in Somalia to fight a proxy war against its archrival, Ethiopia.

Speaking during an IGAD Council of ministers meeting in Nairobi, Andeab Gebremeskel, the director of Africa, Asia and Pacific affairs in Eritrea's foreign ministry said his country has no interest in fuelling crisis in Somalia where Ethiopian troops is fighting pitched battles against insurgents in Mogadishu.

"Eritrea does not wish to engage in fruitless discourse of acrimony, but it should be emphasized that Eritrea firmly rejects all groundless accusations peddled against it in the past few months," Gebremeskel told the ministers from the seven-member regional bloc, IGAD.

"I would like to reassure you ..that Eritrea has never seen Somalia as a proxy battlefield to settle scores with Ethiopia. Grave as it may be, the border conflict with Ethiopia is a problem between the two countries that cannot be played out in Somalia," he added.

Earlier, Somali Foreign Minister Ismael Hurreh accused Eritrea of fueling the fighting in Somalia. "It is public information that Eritrea is calling for the inclusion of these extremist elements in the political process in Somalia," he charged.

"It is mainly these elements and their sympathizers who are responsible for the current tragedy in the city," Hurreh told foreign ministers.

Eritrea, which rejected the proposals endorsed here Friday to urgently deploy an African Union Peace Support Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), said it had other methods of resolving the crisis in Somalia. The Eritrean official said the constant statements issued by the U.S. government have worsened the crisis in Somalia.

Tuju said he has been mandated to travel to Eritrea soon to hold a meeting with the officials regarding their rejection of the AMISOM, noting that their objection had been noted and could slow down the efforts to pacify Somalia.

"President Kibaki has asked me to engage in shuttle diplomacy on the issue of Somalia and Eritrea," Tuju told journalists in Nairobi after the IGAD ministers ended their meeting late Friday.

He said the exchanges between the three countries were results of a long winding border dispute, which both Eritrea and Ethiopia were passionate about.

"We have no more appetite for such exchanges. Our hands are already too full at the moment with the crisis in Somalia and the implementation of Sudan peace agreement, we really do not want this to continue," Tuju added.

Eritrea is demanding the urgent withdrawal of Ethiopian forces from Somalia, but the other six members of IGAD have unanimously agreed on the need to urgently deploy the troops from the other African nations before the Ethiopian pullout.

"We have discussed this issue previously and Ethiopia has been willing to withdraw from Somalia but we all agree that it has to be a tactful pullout otherwise it would plunge the region into a security vacuum," Tuju explained.

The foreign ministers attending the meeting also agreed that the situation in Mogadishu was very volatile and requires careful handling as the Somali transitional government moves to asserts its authority on the ground.

Source: Xinhua