Editor TLN
7 Jan. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Somalia’s Deputy Defense Minister, Abdifatá Qasim, has assured that the jihadist organization Al Shabaab has offered the possibility of entering into negotiations to put an end to the bloody conflict in the country but has qualified that the final decision is the responsibility of the Presidency and that in In no way will foreign mercenaries who are part of the terrorist group enter the talks.
“Al Shabaab has requested the opening of negotiations. We are discussing it, but right now there is something that must be eradicated in Somalia and it is called terrorism,” the deputy minister declared in comments collected by the Caasimada portal.
However, the deputy minister wanted to divide Al Shabaab into two groups of “renegades from Islam”: “foreigners and those born in Somalia.” The latter, he specified, “have a chance,” but for those who “invaded the country, there is no possible dialogue.”
In addition, the vice minister has been emphatic in his refusal regarding the possibility of negotiating without surrender. “If our compatriots surrender, we are ready. Until then there is nothing to discuss with them.”
Somalia’s president, Hasan Sheikh Mohamud, who has declared “total war” on the bloody jihadist group, has previously said that Somalia is not contemplating a negotiation even though the authorities “do not close the door” to those who “want to get away from violence and extremist ideology”.
Al Shabaab, which this week carried out a double bomb attack that left at least 35 dead in central Somalia, has not yet commented on these statements.
