Bush urges Brown not to set Iraq pullout timetable

BBC NEWS

15/06/08

US President George W Bush is due to arrive in the UK as he nears the end of what is expected to be his final tour of Europe before leaving office.

After meeting the Queen in Windsor, Mr Bush will have dinner with Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

The visit will include talks on coordinating allied strategy in Iraq.

Mr Bush tells the Observer newspaper the US and UK want to withdraw troops but this should be “based on success” and not a “definitive timetable”.

No guarantees

His comments follow reports that a final pull-out of the UK’s remaining 4,500 troops could be signalled by the end of the year.

The president said he is confident that, like him, Mr Brown will listen to the commanders “to make sure that the sacrifices that have gone forward won’t be unravelled by draw-downs that may not be warranted”.

But the Ministry of Defence has said no decision had been taken on troop withdrawals.

And a Downing Street spokeswoman said there was no disagreement with the US.

Any withdrawal of UK forces would depend on “conditions on the ground,” she said.

“It is not our policy to set arbitrary timetables.”

The BBC’s world affairs correspondent Mike Wooldridge said the talks would also be likely to cover Iran and its nuclear ambitions as well as the global fuel and food crises.

He added that although Britain – like the rest of Europe – is already looking beyond President Bush to the next US administration, the allies still face six months of challenges together on many fronts.

Mr Bush’s week-long trip also took him to Slovenia, Germany, Italy, France and the Vatican.

Intl community wants Obama to be next US prez: survey

Silicon Valley, June 15 (PTI)

15/06/08

If the international community was allowed to vote, presumptive Democratic candidate Barack Obama would more likely to be the next US president, according to a latest Pew Global Attitudes survey.
The survey of more than 24,000 people in 24 countries, including India, conducted between March 17 and April 21, found there is considerable interest in the US presidential campaign in the surveyed nations.

A large majority of Japanese say they are following the election very closely (24 per cent) or somewhat closely (59 per cent). As a point of comparison, a third of Americans are following the election very closely, with another 47 per cent saying they are tracking the campaign somewhat closely.

At least half or more of respondents in such countries as Germany, Australia, Great Britain and Jordan are closely following the election. In India, 46 per cent are focusing in the campaign.

The survey found that people around the world who have been paying attention to the American election express more confidence in Obama than in presumptive Republican candidate Senator John McCain to do the right thing regarding world affairs.

McCain is rated lower than Obama in every country surveyed, except for the US where his rating matches Obama’s, as well as in Jordan and Pakistan where very few people have confidence in either of the two candidates.

In India 52 per cent expressed confidence in Obama, compared with 17 per cent in McCain. PTI

East African Nations Call for UN Peacekeeping Force in Somalia

June 15/ 2008

 (Bloomberg

The Intergovernmental Authority on Development, a group of six East African countries, has called for the United Nations to send a peacekeeping force to Somalia to end factional fighting that has plagued the Horn of Africa nation since 1991.

Ethiopian troops invaded Somalia in December 2006, ousting an Islamist alliance from the capital, Mogadishu, and installing a transitional federal government. That government has struggled to control parts of the capital because of an insurgency by Islamist and clan-based militias. African Union troops are already in the country.

“The prevailing security situation in Somalia is worrying and greatly threatens regional peace and stability,” Mwai Kibaki, Kenya’s president, said late yesterday at a summit in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. The summit included leaders from Ethiopia, Sudan, Uganda, Djibouti and Somalia.

Somalia hasn’t had a functioning central administration since the 1991 removal of former dictator Mohammed Siad Barre. Bordered by Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti the country has been the target of air-strikes by the U.S. this year and last year against suspected al-Qaeda members.

The East African group, known as Igad, wants the UN to take control of and expand the 2,600-member African Union peacekeeping force, Kibaki said, adding that UN troops should be deployed in the next 120 days. The troops would help support a June 9 peace agreement between Somalia’s transitional government and an opposition group.

The government and the opposition Alliance for the Re- liberation of Somalia agreed to halt attacks within 30 days and for Ethiopian troops to withdraw from the country within four months. The Al-Shabaab Islamist group said on June 13 that it won’t observe the agreement.

Igad also condemned Eritrea for a cross-border raid against Djibouti last week that left nine Djiboutian soldiers dead. Eritrea, which suspended its membership in Igad in April last year, didn’t attend the meeting.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jason Mclure in Addis Ababa via Johannesburg at asguazzin@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: June 15, 2008 05:32 EDT

Djibouti president accuses Eritrea over border fight

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters)

15/06/08

 Djibouti’s president on Saturday accused Eritrea of starting clashes between the two countries in his first public comments on fighting this week over their common border near Red sea shipping lanes.

President Ismail Omar Guelleh’s comments came at a meeting of heads of state from the seven member regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), which Eritrea belongs to but has been boycotting

At the meeting in Ethiopia’s capital, IGAD urged calm between the two neighbouring Horn of Africa states, which fought after a two-month border standoff erupted into the first combat between the pair — two of Africa’s youngest and smallest countries — since 1996.

Guelleh said the fighting that started on Tuesday and lasted two days had killed 12 Djiboutian soldiers and wounded 55 more.

“We’ve always had good relations,” Guelleh told journalists. “But they aggressively occupied part of our country. This is an aggression we are resisting.”

Eritrea has not commented directly on how the clashes started, but has rejected any suggestion it crossed Djibouti’s border and Western criticism that it started the fighting.

European Commissioner for Development and Aid Louis Michel, met Guelleh in Addis Ababa on Saturday and will meet Eritrean President Isiais Afewerki in Eritrean capital Asmara on Sunday in an attempt at shuttle diplomacy.

“There is no reason for this,” he told reporters in Addis Ababa. “There is space to solve it through peaceful means.”

Djibouti hosts French and U.S. military bases and is the main route to the sea for Eritrea’s arch foe Ethiopia, Washington’s top regional ally. France has said its military was providing logistical support to Djibouti.

Eritrea has fractious ties with the West, which accuses it of backing Somali insurgents and expelling U.N. peacekeepers on its border with Ethiopia.

It also has withdrawn from IGAD, which it accuses of backing Ethiopia and the latter’s support for the interim Somali government.

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki, the outgoing IGAD chairman, called Eritrea’s decision to withdraw from the body “a serious threat to security in the region”.

IGAD in a communique “called upon both parties, in particular the government of Eritrea, to heed the call for restraint by the United Nations, the African Union and the League of Arab States”.