International diplomats seek to avert crisis in Somalia

African leaders and other international representatives opened a meeting in Nairobi on Friday to seek ways of bringing normalcy in war torn Somalia.

Senior diplomats from the Washington-backed International Contact Group on Somalia were discussing peace building, reconstruction and deployment of peacekeepers in Somalia, which has been engulfed by fighting in recent days.

Ismael Mohmoud Hurreh, Somalia's foreign minister, told journalists that his newly ensconced government would ask the African Union to deploy peacekeepers to his country to replace Ethiopian troops.

"We are expecting that Contact Group is going to solicit African countries to send troops and to solicit the international communality to pay for the bill," Hurreh told journalists briefly before the start of the closed-door meeting in the Kenyan capital city.

"The meeting will focus on the deployment, including the financing. A lot of countries are highly interested in the stability of Somalia," Hurreh said.

Some of the African countries want international peacekeepers to be deployed to prevent a vacuum, which would allow the re- emergence of former warlords who controlled the country since 1991.

Ethiopia's Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has made it clear that he wanted to withdraw his troops within the next few weeks.

Uganda has offered to commit 1,000 troops to a 8,000-strong regional peace force. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said he has troops trained and ready for this role, once his country's parliament gives its approval.

Other countries, Rwanda, Tanzania, South Africa and Nigeria, have also expressed interest to send troops to the war-ravaged nation, which has been without a central rule for 16 years.

Source: Xinhua