Shabelle: SOMALIA
ADDIS ABABA (Sh. M. Network)-The office of Somali’s president Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed strongly denied media reports saying that the president demanded foreign troops to fight "extremists," an official told radio Shabelle on Tuesday.
Media reports said president Sheik Sharif demanded foreign, military forces to fight against extremism.
Ahmed Moalin Fiqi, the spokesman of the president said that the president has not demanded any foreign troops.
“This is absolutely false and it is an attempt to detract the efforts of the president and the ongoing peace process,” said Ahmed Moalin Fiqi.
The Somali president Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed was speaking to the reporters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and insisted that he was not planning to demand foreign forces, but he said that he was going to build Somali national security forces.
President Sheik Sharif told to the reporters during his press conference in Addis Ababa that he will try his best to negotiate with those who rejected to be part of the peace process, especially Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweis, the leader of a wing from the Alliance of the Re-liberation of Somalia based in the Eritrean capital Asmara.
Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, an Islamist cleric who was elected president by Somalia’s transitional parliament on Saturday, called for international assistance to help rebuild the country’s army in order to stop pirates organizing attacks.
The problem of piracy off Somalia’s shores “is not on the sea, it’s on the land,” Ahmed told reporters today at the African Union summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital. “Only the Somali government can deal with those who are on the land.”
The spokesman said the president is flying back to Djibouti tomorrow where he is expected to form his government.
By: Ahmednor Mohamed Farah
