Government seeks support to crisis

The Comoros government and leaders from the separatist island of Anjouan want African support for an agreement to end Anjouan’s three-year-old secession from the Indian Ocean republic, news reports said on Moinday. Comoran officials were quoted as saying that a reconciliation agreement would be signed later this week after a series of closed-door meetings aimed at resolving the crisis. They said two missions from the government left Moroni on Saturday night to brief leading African states on new proposals for a confederation - a basis on which Anjouan is prepared to reunite with the Federal Islamic Republic of the Comoros. But details of the new formula have not been revealed. Comoran Foreign Minister Souef Mohamed Elamine has been mandated to brief the governments of Tanzania and Ethiopia, while Interior Minister Mohamed Abdou Soimadou is heading for South Africa, Madagascar and Mauritius on a similar mission, reports said.