A warlord who was the last major holdout in peace talks aimed at ending Somalia's 13-year-old civil war has stopped fighting in southern Somalia and asked to join the negotiations, a senior Kenyan government official said Sunday. Mohamed Siad Hersi, better known as Captain General Morgan, crossed into Kenya's eastern Garissa district Saturday and asked Kenyan authorities to allow him to rejoin peace talks in the capital, Nairobi, said Joseph Nyagah, Kenya's assistant regional cooperation minister.
| "Yar! I be ready to negotiate, y'swabs!" |
Morgan walked out of the talks in March over a dispute regarding a transitional charter for Somalia. "We ... are obviously happy that he's finally seen the need to be part and parcel of the inevitable, that there is going to be peace in Somalia," Nyagah told The Associated Press. The seven-nation regional organization mediating the talks, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, had threatened to slap heavy sanctions on Morgan. Nyagah said Morgan was staying in a Nairobi hotel. "We're at the moment trying to find out how we can incorporate him in the peace process as various people want it to be as inclusive as possible," he said. |