U.S. Supports Stabilization Force for Somalia
29 November 2006
African-led force can create conditions for dialogue, State's Casey says
Washington -- The United States supports international diplomatic efforts to introduce an African-led force to promote stability in Somalia, a State Department spokesman says.
“Ultimately, our end goal is establishing a reasonable security and a functioning government for the people of Somalia that, frankly, have been without one for more than a decade now,” State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey said at a November 29 press briefing.
Recent months have seen an upsurge in violence in Somalia, as its government, the Transitional Federal Institutions (TFI), has lost ground to the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), which now controls much of the East African country.
The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), chaired by neighboring Kenya and headquartered in Djibouti, has proposed with the African Union to deploy a training and protection mission to stabilize security and help create conditions for a TFI-UIC dialogue.
“We want to act in support of the decisions that have been taken, both by IGAD as well as by the African Union, in terms of trying to help promote a solution to the long-standing problems in Somalia,” Casey said.
The United States is consulting in the U.N. Security Council on a Somalia resolution.
“We have looked at the situation in Somalia, and I think there's pretty general agreement that we need to do something as opposed to just watching the situation deteriorate,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton told journalists in a November 28 press briefing at the United Nations.
Although he declined to provide specifics on the resolution, Bolton emphasized that “we want to get it right, and when we move we want to be able to move quickly to the adoption of the resolution, which is why the consultations we're engaged in now we think are so important.”
In addition to a stabilization force, a State Department statement also calls on the TFI and UIC to commit to a verifiable cease-fire and on the international community to honor the United Nations arms embargo in an effort to contain the conflict.
“The United States will remain actively engaged in preventing the continued escalation of tensions inside Somalia, which could spark wider regional conflict in the Horn of Africa if left unchecked. The deployment of a regional force is key in ensuring that such a scenario does not transpire,” the statement concluded.
A transcript of Casey’s briefing and the November 28 State Department statement are available on the State Department Web site.
A transcript of Bolton’s remarks is available from the U.S. Mission to the United Nations Web site.
For more information, see Africa.
(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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