NAIROBI, Feb. 8 (Xinhuanet) -- Kenya will not send peacekeepers inwar-torn Somalia, Foreign Affairs Minister Chirau Ali Mwakwere said Tuesday, adding that involving its troops in combat with Somali marauding militias would compromise its mediation role in the region.
Mwakwere told a news conference in Nairobi that Kenya was willing to send peace monitors and provide logistical aid for the deployment of the peacekeepers, which was approved by the African Union summit in Abuja last week.
"We have decided not to send a peacekeeping force but we will send monitors or observers and provide food aid and other forms ofsupport to the peacekeepers," Mwakwere said in Nairobi upon his return from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia where he attended a meeting on anti-terrorism.
"Because of the location and the role Kenya has played, we willcontinue to serve as center of activities for developments in Somalia," the minister added.
He said the governments of Djibouti, Sudan, Uganda and Ethiopiahave expressed their commitment to supporting a peace mission for Somalia by providing troops to help the exiled government currently based in neighboring Kenya relocate to the chaotic country.
He said Ethiopia has pledged the largest battalion of soldiers and equipment, followed by Uganda, Sudan and Djibouti, which will send a military detachment to Somalia.
The foreign minister said the east African nation's leading role as the chief mediator in Somalia would be compromised if its troops are associated with acts of misdeeds during the peacekeeping mission.
"We are talking about personnel and the arms to be used during the monitoring, the possibilities of groups taking sides. It is important that we do not take sides," Mwakwere said.
The newly created transitional government of Somalia, however, remains in Nairobi, where it was set up, because security concernsand lack of resources have prevented members of the administrationfrom moving to Mogadishu, the Somali capital.
The IGAD Defense Ministers Council is set to meet in Kampala later this week to fine-tune plans for the deployment of the troops.
Kenya said it would be represented at the meeting, which will also discuss alleged opposition to peacekeepers by Islamic fundamentalists.
Last October, Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed asked the pan African body, the African Union (AU) for 20,000 peacekeepers to help disarm militias and provide a safe environment for the return of the Somali government.
The AU which in January accepted in principle the deployment ofAfrican troops to Somalia, bestowed Inter-Governmental Authority Development (IGAD) nations with the responsibility of initial troop deployment pending the arrival of the AU troops.
Diplomatic sources said that a study team is expected to go to Somalia on Friday to assess the situation before troops finally arrive in the troubled Horn of Africa nation.
Over the weekend, the Somali government accepted the deploymentof a peace mission to the country but the decision was met with stiff opposition from the warlords who control fiefdoms across thecountry.
For almost 14 years, warlords and their militias loyal to specific clans and sub-clans have been battling each other and civilians for control over certain areas of the country, with no central authority to stop their actions. Enditem
www.chinaview.cn
2005-02-08 22:42:52
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