Somalia accuses Ethiopia of smuggling weapons into its territories

The Somali government has accused Ethiopia of smuggling weapons into its territories in a violation of an embargo imposed by the UN and asked the UN Security Council to impose sanctions on its neighbor in the African horn.

Somalia's ambassador at the UN Ahmad Abdi Hashi said that Ethiopia also sent forces to Somalia in the hope to keep this country in a state of disorder and gives political and financial support to the Somali warlords who kidnapped UN relief employees.

In a press conference held at the UN, Hashi said that Ethiopia wants to Balkanize Somalia with the existence of small provinces (in Somalia) it (Ethiopia) can rule.

Hashi continued that the Somali foreign minister Youssef Hassan Ibrahim complained from Ethiopia's behavior in messages handed over on Friday to the UN Security Council, the UN chief Kofi Annan and the UN Security Council's special committee in charge of supervising arms embargo imposed on Somalia in 1992 but he has not yet received any answer.

For his part, Ethiopia's ambassador to the UN Abdul Majeed Hussein rejected what was announced by the Somali ambassador and accused the Somali provisional government of attempting to foil the Somali conference for reconciliation due to be held in Nairobi in June or July. He said that Ethiopia does not only deny that, rather sees it is regrettable they (the Somalis) do not exploit this time to re-arrange their house and deal with their problems. "It is our interest to have a stable Somalia," he said.