NAIROBI, 11 Oct 2005 (IRIN) - Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG) on Tuesday refuted claims in a ‎United Nations report that said it had violated an arms embargo on the strife-torn Horn of Africa country. ‎

The report released on 4 October by the UN-appointed monitoring team said violations of the embargo by the TFG, ‎its opponents in the capital, Mogadishu, and certain parties in the region had taken a "sustained and dramatic ‎upswing". ‎

The increased arms inflow was a manifestation of "highly aggravated political tensions between the TFG and the ‎opposition" and had given rise to increased militarization of both sides resulting in a severely elevated threat of ‎widespread violence in Somalia. ‎

The TFG's deputy information minister, Salad Ali Jeele, however, told IRIN that the administration had not received ‎any weapons from external sources. ‎ ‎"I don't know where they obtained their information, but it is not true," Jeele said. "I can tell you no one has given ‎us any weapons," he added. ‎ ‎"We feel that the embargo is unfair at this stage of Somalia's development. Our president has asked for the lifting ‎of the embargo but was denied." The TFG, however, had not violated the embargo, he emphasized. ‎
President Abdillahi Yusuf Ahmed, in an address to the UN General Assembly on 17 September, appealed for the ‎lifting of the embargo on the grounds that it was hampering his government's efforts to maintain law and order in ‎Somalia. ‎ ‎"The embargo directly undermines the government's inherent right and genuine effort of forming its national ‎security force that would protect the public and keep the peace by enforcing law and order throughout Somalia," ‎Yusuf said. ‎

The UN imposed an arms embargo on Somalia in 1992, in the midst of a civil war that followed the 1991 collapse ‎of the government of president Muhammad Siyad Barre. ‎ Jeele invited the UN monitoring team to visit Jowhar, 90 km south of the capital, where Yusuf and Prime Minister ‎Ali Gedi are based. ‎ ‎"We want them [UN monitoring group] to come to Jowhar and see everything. We want to cooperate with them if ‎they are willing to cooperate with us. We have nothing to hide," said Jeele.‎

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