(AKI) - Somalia's transitional government is willing to enter peace talks with the Union of Islamists Courts (UIC), the Horn of Afica country's interior minister, Mohammed Ghulid, told the Jordanian newspaper al-Dustur in an interview published Thursday. "We have contacted several rebels in Mogadishu asking them to negotiate," Ghulid was quoted as saying. "We hope they will accept are overture," he added.
UIC fighters besieged the transitional goverment for months in its headquarters in the south western city of Baidoa until Ehtiopian troops intervened last December driving the Islamists from the country's capital Mogadishu. Since then rifts had emerged within the transitional institution on whether or not to engage in peace talks with the Islamists who are believed to be repsonsible for ongoing sporadic attacks in Mogadishu and elsewhere. |