Somali government ready to talk with opposition

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somalia's government said on Wednesday it was ready to negotiate with any opposition groups to end a 15-month-old insurgency and called for international mediation.The government and its Ethiopian military allies have waged an increasingly bloody counter-insurgency campaign against Islamist rebels and others since ousting Somalia's Islamic Courts Council from power in late 2006."The Somali government is ready to reconcile with any Somali citizen opposing it," it said in a statement."The government approves of any location for the negotiation to take place that the international community led by the U.N.'s special representative for Somalia mediate the negotiations."At least 7,000 people have died and hundreds of thousands been displaced in an insurgency characterised by roadside bombs and hit-and-run attacks.An Eritrea-based alliance of Somali opposition groups -- made up of former parliamentarians, Islamists and members of the foreign diaspora -- insist Ethiopian troops withdraw before talks.But Somali Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein said that would not happen. "I have repeatedly made clear in the past that issues of Ethiopian forces in Somalia can be settled when the government and its opponents agree on something, but negotiations should take place first," he told reporters.

(Reporting by Aweys Yusuf; Editing by Jack Kimball)

SOURCE: Reuters, March 12, 2008