NAIROBI, Kenya, June 17, 2006 – Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki has urged the breakaway republic of Somaliland to start dialogue with the Somali government in a bid to end more than a decade of stalemate on unity talks.

Ties between anarchic Somalia's largely powerless transitional government and Somaliland authorities have worsened in recent years, with the leader of the unrecognized republic, Dahir Rayale Kahin, refusing dialogue.

Kibaki, who chairs the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (Igad), told Kahin that "dialogue and reconciliation" was the only way forward, the presidential press service said.

Kibaki said Kenya "will play its facilitative role in the consolidation of peace and security in Somalia," where recent fighting between Islamic courts militia and US-supported warlords has claimed at least 350 people and wounded 2,000 in the Mogadishu and Jowhar.

A former British protectorate, Somaliland united with the Italian colony in the south in 1960 but unilaterally broke away from the rest of Somalia in 1991 after the ouster of strongman Mohamed Siyad Barre in Mogadishu.

While Somalia itself has degenerated into lawlessness, Somaliland has been relatively peaceful.

Although its appeals for international recognition have been ignored, it has still held several elections deemed to have been free and fair and built up many institutions of statehood from its self-declared capital in Hargeysa.

Somaliland, which adopted a provisional constitution in 1997 and ratified its four years later, now boasts its own president, government, parliament, police force, penal code and currency.

Its officials fiercely reject any suggestion of re-uniting with Somalia and have repeatedly sought legitimacy as a sovereign state.

However, the transitional Somali government is strongly opposed to any kind of legal or diplomatic recognition for Somaliland, and some analysts believe such a step could further destabilize the shattered Horn of Africa state.

Sapa-AFP

Source: Sunday Times, June 15, 2006