BUJUMBURA, Burundi (AFP)--Burundi won't withdraw forces from an African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia before consulting with fellow troop contributor Uganda, its defense minister said Saturday.
"We are going to meet with Uganda this week to study the situation in Somalia" after Ethiopia announced Friday it would withdraw its forces from the Horn of Africa country, Defense Minister Germain Nikyoyankana told AFP.
"Wait for that time to ask me the question about whether or not we will withdraw our troops from Somalia," he said.
His remarks coincided with a call by an African Union panel for the United Nations to form an international stabilization force for Somalia to build on the A.U. peacekeepers there and to avoid a security vacuum should the Ethiopian troops withdraw.
But a senior Burundi army official cast doubt that Addis Ababa's intentions to depart.
"For the moment, we don't think Ethiopia will execute its threat to withdraw its troops, just as we don't yet see withdrawing the 1,700 Burundi forces" in the A.U. peacekeeping mission, said the official who declined to be identified.
Rather, he said, Burundi was ready to send additional troops if requested.
Ethiopia sent troops to Somalia in 2006 to oust radical Islamists which had conquered most of the country.
Now estimated at around 3,000, the Ethiopian troops were meant to prop up Somalia's embattled transitional federal government, but the internationally-backed authorities never succeeded in asserting their power on the restive country.
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 29, 2008 12:45 ET (17:45 GMT)

Publié le 29 novembre 2008 Copyright © 2008 Dowjones