www.chinaview.cn 2004-12-06 23:04:41
ADDIS ABABA, Dec. 6 (Xinhuanet) -- Ethiopia and Somalia on Monday expressed their willingness to forge strong diplomatic relations and cooperation, following the talks here between Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin and his Somalia counterpart Abdulahi Sheikh Ismael.
According to the Ethiopian Foreign Ministry, the two parties expressed commitments to cement cooperation, and discussed activities of the new Somali Government.
They also discussed what the Somalia state seeks from the international community in reinstating government structures, addressing the role of the neighboring Ethiopia to helping the speedy delivery of international assistance, the ministry was quoted by the Ethiopian News Agency as saying.
Somalia has been without an effective central government since 1991 when the regime of Muhammad Siad Barre was toppled, following which the country plunged into anarchy and factional violence.
Since the breakdown of the Somali central government, conflict and famine have killed hundreds of thousands of people, plunging the country into anarchy.
Under the auspices of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, which groups Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Sudan, Uganda and Somalia, Somali National Reconciliation Conference began in October 2002 in the western Kenyan town of Eldoret, and was moved to Nairobi in February 2003.
As a result of the conference, Somali Transitional President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed was inaugurated on Oct. 14 in Nairobi, and the Somali Prime Minister was appointed on Nov. 3.
In the wake of the establishment of Somali transitional federal government, the Ethiopian government pledged that Ethiopia would provide all the necessary support to help the new Somali government consolidate its power in Somalia.
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