Spain and France Propose Holding an International Conference on Lawless Somalia

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero announced that Spain and France will propose an international conference on lawless Somalia, where pirates continue to hold ships to ransom. "We have agreed to propose the holding of an international conference on Somalia," he told a joint news conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The conference would offer a "wide response, not only on a security and military level, to piracy, which is afflicting both our countries and others," he added. It would be a "complete" response to the problem on a "political, security and civil level for the future of this country."

An EU naval mission proposed by France and Spain, Atalante, began operations off the coast of Somalia last December in an effort to stop attacks in the Gulf of Aden, one of the world's busiest trade routes, but both countries also stand accused of having done nothing against the illegal fishing of vessels linked to France and Spain in Somali waters.

Source - Ecoterra Intl, May 3, 2009

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