voa标准英语2008年-Somali Power-Sharing Deal Lacks Support from Ke

In Nairobi, the U.S. Ambassador to Kenya Michael Ranneburger told reporters that he, too, believed the peace process could yield positive results. But he acknowledged that an on-going personal dispute between Somalia's interim President Abdullahi Yusuf and Prime Minister Nur Adde Hassan Hussein was not helpful to the process. The feud 11, which erupted in August, has further weakened the government by splitting it into factions 12.

"The challenge is to ensure that President Yusuf and the prime minister work together to ensure that this is implemented," said Ranneburger. "Obviously, that is not an ideal relationship. We also have the parliament with its own views. But we are certainly pressing all the institutions of the TFG [transitional federal government] to work together."

Publicly, Mr. Yusuf has expressed support for the Djibouti peace talks. He has denied making a proposal last week to move the talks to Libya, where he reportedly enjoys support from Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. But parliament members close to the president privately 14 say that Mr. Yusuf strongly disapproves 15 of the power-sharing agreement and does not feel bound by it.

The latest agreement between the government and the opposition led by moderate Islamist leader Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed follows a deal signed in June to implement 13 a ceasefire and replace thousands of Ethiopian troops in Somalia with a U.N. peacekeeping force in the coming months. The troops arrived in late 2006, when Ethiopia ousted 16 the ruling Islamic Courts Union, installed the secular 17 government in its place, and ignited an Islamist-led insurgency 18. The fighting in Somalia has killed thousands of people and has left millions displaced.

The opposition has never been able to implement the ceasefire because Islamist insurgents 19 on the ground, led by the militant 20 al-Qaida-linked Shabab group, have refused to join the talks and have continued their fight to throw Ethiopia out of Somalia and to regain 21 control of the country.

The chief negotiator for the opposition alliance, Abdirahman Abdishakur Warsame, tells VOA that he is confident a ceasefire would come into effect as soon as Ethiopia withdrew its forces.

"Yes, the issue is how to deal with the complaints of those who are on the ground because the reason they are fighting is that they are against the presence of Ethiopian troops," he said. "And if you deal with that issue correctly, I think nobody will have the legitimacy 22 to continue fighting."

Ethiopia has resisted calls for an immediate 23 withdrawal 24 because it fears Islamists with goals of uniting ethnically-Somali areas of southern Ethiopia with Somalia could fill the power vacuum its troops would leave behind. But Ethiopia has been showing growing impatience 25 with the transitional government in recent weeks and has indicated that it would begin withdrawing troops within the next few weeks.