SOMALIA: Mogadishu's Muslim rulers yesterday blamed Ethiopia's "invasion" of Somalia for stalled peace talks with the fragile interim government as a UN envoy struggled to kick-start negotiations.
"As long as Ethiopia is in our country, talks with the government cannot go ahead . . . Ethiopia has invaded us," the newly powerful Islamists' hardline leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys told reporters in Mogadishu.
Anti-Islamist Ethiopia has sent several thousand troops into Somalia, according to witnesses and regional experts, to counter expansion by the Islamists and protect the government of President Abdullahi Yusuf based in the provincial town Baidoa.
The Islamists rose to power in a battle against US-backed warlords earlier this year, taking Mogadishu on June 5th.
In Baidoa, Mr Yusuf's government told the UN special envoy to Somalia, Francois Lonseny Fall, the government would attend a second round of talks in Sudan despite its earlier objection that the Islamists had broken a pact against military expansion.
"We will go to Khartoum without any preconditions," said Mr Yusuf's chief of staff Abdirizak Adam after talks with Mr Fall.
Mr Fall then flew to Mogadishu, where the Islamists told him they were committed to negotiations but not while Ethiopian troops were on their soil.
The international community sees talks - probably leading to some sort of a power-sharing agreement - as the only way to prevent the Islamist-government standoff spiralling into war.
Any conflict could also drag in Eritrea, which the Islamists said for the first time yesterday was backing them.