Somali enclave urges Yusuf to withdraw troops

12 Nov 2004 17:09:33 GMT

ADDIS ABABA, Nov 12 (Reuters) - Somalia's unrecognised Somaliland enclave urged the country's new president, Abdullahi Yusuf, on Friday to withdraw troops from a disputed northern region where fighting killed about 100 people last month.

Battles flared in October between Somalia's Puntland territory and the rival enclave of Somaliland, which accused Yusuf, Puntland's former leader, of waging war on it.

Yusuf, elected president on Oct. 10 at national reconciliation talks in neighbouring Kenya, has pledged to work peacefully with Somaliland as he tries to restore order to Somalia, which descended into anarchy in 1991 following the ousting of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

But his election alarmed Somaliland, hostile to a man long seen as its arch foe. Somaliland warned Yusuf on October 12 against any attempted aggression and said it was on alert against any move to reunite Somaliland with the rest of Somalia.

Fighting flared on Oct. 29 and sputtered on for several days. Both sides accused the other of starting it.

"Abdullahi Yusuf's personal clan militia are occupying villages 130 km (80 miles) deep inside eastern Somaliland territory. We call on him to withdraw his occupying force as soon as possible," Somaliland Foreign Minister Edana Adam Ismael told Reuters on a visit to Ethiopia.

"It will be good if their departure is sooner than later, because every time they are there it is a provocation."

Somaliland, an enclave on the Gulf of Aden, declared independence from anarchic Somalia in 1991 and has since enjoyed relative peace, but is unrecognised internationally.

It has fought sporadic clashes with Puntland for years over the ownership of several eastern areas of Somaliland claimed by Puntland's leaders as their own, on the basis of ethnicity.

SOMALILAND SAYS NO TO UNIFICATION

Ismael rejected any notion of re-unifying with Somalia.

"The sovereignty of Somaliland is non-negotiable. We have gained our independence from Great Britain in 1960 which is irrevocable," she said.

Ismael accused Yusuf of double standards by launching an attack on Somaliland while he was telling the world that he wanted to resolve the problems of Somalia by peaceful means.

In Nairobi, the head of Yusuf's Presidential Press Service, Yusuf Mohamed Ismail, reacted to Ismael's comments by calling for IGAD, a regional peacemaking body, to visit the disputed areas to determine who started the fighting and to put in place mechanisms to avoid any future escalation.

Mohamed Ismail added that only peaceful dialogue without preconditions would solve any political differences. He urged aid agencies to send teams to the conflict zone to tend to the wounded, displaced and prisoners of war.

Somaliland, a region of 3.5 to 4.5 million, won independence from Britain in 1960 and quickly joined neighbouring ex-Italian Somalia to form a united republic.

But an uprising against Siad Barre in the 1980s was followed by years of devastation as he turned his forces against the northwestern enclave.

When Siad Barre fled the country in 1991, Somaliland split away. The rest of Somalia slid into lawlessness and clan-based factional conflict which is still continuing.