Somali ministers resign to help peace talks

MOGADISHU - Eighteen Somali ministers and other top officials quit the interim government today and lawmakers moved to oust the prime minister, in moves intended to draw rival Islamists into peace talks and avert war.

Government sources said the manoeuvres could open the way for Islamists to take ministerial posts.

Power-sharing is seen as the best way to stop a descent into war in the Horn of Africa nation.

The Islamists took Mogadishu in June and control a swathe of the south, threatening the authority of a government set up in 2004. It was the 14th attempt to restore central rule since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

In a consolidation of their power in Mogadishu, Islamist militia today took over one of the city's most famous buildings, a Barre-era presidential palace called Villa Somalia. It had been held by gunmen loyal to a defeated warlord.

The Islamists inaugurated a new sharia tribunal, the "Presidential Palace Islamic Court", at the bullet-scarred, hilltop mansion. Former fighters for the warlord joined Islamist ranks, and an arsenal of weapons was handed over.

Lawmakers said a vote of no confidence in Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi had been presented to the parliamentary speaker and would be debated this weekend in Baidoa, seat of the Western-backed interim authorities.

The list of high-level resignations included seven ministers, seven assistant ministers and four state ministers.

"We have decided to vacate all the seats for the Khartoum talks," outgoing state minister of parliament and government relations Abdirahman Haji Adan told Reuters.

The two sides held one round of talks in the Sudanese capital last month before negotiations broke down. A new round is slated for early next month.

Ahmed Abdirahman Mohamed, outgoing Assistant Minister for Higher Education, said the government had compromised itself by becoming too close to Ethiopia, which is believed to have sent troops into Somalia to curb the Islamist expansion.

"(The government) was taking orders from Addis Ababa. Somalis now have an opportunity to reconstitute their government," he told Reuters from Baidoa.

Regional diplomats believe offering the prime ministership and some other ministerial posts to the Islamists could be the only way to save a peace deal reached in 2004 in neighbouring Kenya.

But there is no guarantee the Islamists will accept such an overture. Nor is it clear how long it might take to thrash out a deal.

"The (no confidence) motion is supported and even funded by Islamists who want to take the position once talks with the government commence in Khartoum," a government source said.

The government's interim charter says that once a vote of no confidence is passed against a prime minister, the president is required to appoint a new one within 30 days.

The government boycotted the second round of peace talks with Islamists in Khartoum this month in protest at alleged violations of a pact against military expansion.

On the other side, the Islamists' leader, hardline cleric Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, has ruled out a meeting unless Ethiopia stops its "invasion" of Somalia.

"We don't care who is removed and who remains in the government. Our only worry is Ethiopia and until they get out, we will not rest," Aweys told Reuters today.

Ethiopia denies sending troops and today accused neighbour and foe Eritrea of supplying arms to the Islamists, including in a plane that landed in Mogadishu yesterday.

"Eritrea's action ... could escalate into violence in the region," said Information Ministry spokesman Zemedhun Tekle.

- REUTERS