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NAIROBI, Feb 13 (Reuters) - Kenya asked Horn of Africa power Ethiopia on Friday to support faltering peace efforts among militias in neighboring Somalia, a chaotic country that often accuses Addis Ababa of attempting to dominate it.
A Kenyan Foreign Ministry statement said Foreign Minister Kalonzo Musyoka, who hosts the 15-month-old peace talks, made the appeal during a meeting in Nairobi with visiting U.S. Acting Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Charles Snyder.
An African diplomat involved in the peace talks said the appeal was an attempt to persuade Ethiopia to return its delegates to the conference in Kenya, the 14th such peace effort since the country collapsed into anarchy in 1991.
Ethiopia, one of several regional powers helping to mediate the talks, withdrew its representatives late last year in what was widely interpreted at the time as a veiled protest at accusations by Somalis that it was interfering in the process.
Some Somali faction leaders have accused neighboring Ethiopia of using the peace negotiations in Kenya's capital of Nairobi to install a client regime in Mogadishu.
Ethiopia denies the allegation.
"The message we got from the Ethiopians when they pulled out their people was that 'everyone has been attacking us so let's see if you can do it without us'," the African diplomat said.
"However, the Ethiopians have continued to be active behind the scenes and we'd rather they worked openly and in full view of everyone, like they did before."
Ethiopia, a historic competitor of its Muslim neighbors, has long been suspicious of overt Islamist influence in the region and disapproves of Arab funding for several leading Somali politicians.
A broken country of seven million, Somalia is divided into fiefdoms run by rival militias and is cited by U.S. officials as an ideal location for militants wishing to operate outside world scrutiny.
"Musyoka has urged the Ethiopian government to
support the Somali peace process and the outcome of the negotiations," the
Kenyan statement said.
Ethiopia's Minister of State for Information, Netsanet Asfaw, told Reuters
she was surprised by Musyoka's request, "because he very well knows Ethiopia
is involved in the Somali peace process... we are part of the solution".
Rival warlords in January agreed on a transitional charter establishing a
federal system under which the country would be ruled while a new
constitution is written.
But several days later several of the warlords repudiated the accord,
plunging the talks into fresh recriminations.
(Additional reporting by Tsegaye Tadesse)
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