LONDON - British Prime Minister David Cameron told Somalia's fragile leadership, its neighbours and allies Thursday that the world would "pay a price" if it fails to help the troubled east African nation tackle terrorism, piracy and hunger.
About 50 nations and international organizations attended a one-day summit hosted by Cameron in London, including Somalia's Western-backed transitional government, officials from the northern breakaway republic of Somaliland, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
"For two decades Somalia has been torn apart by famine, bloodshed and some of the worst poverty on earth," Cameron said, as he opened the talks.
"Pirates are disrupting vital trade routes and kidnapping tourists. Young minds are being poisoned by radicalism, breeding terrorism that is threatening the security of the whole world," he told delegates. "If the rest of us just sit back and look on, we will pay a price for doing so."
Somalia has had transitional administrations for the past seven years, but has not had a functioning central government since 1991, when warlords overthrew a longtime dictator and turned on each other, plunging the nation into two decades of chaos.
The weak U.N.-backed administration — which holds the capital, Mogadishu, with the support of about 12,000 African Union soldiers — has been boosted by recent offensives against the al-Qaida-linked militant group al-Shabab and U.N. approval Wednesday for an increase in the size of the peacekeeping mission to about 17,700.
"It is in all our interests to try and help the Somali people address these problems, and yet for two decades politicians in the West have too often dismissed the problems in Somalia as simply too difficult and too remote to deal with," Cameron said.
The conference was expected to agree on new transparency rules for international aid and pledge that a group of about 15 nations would help press Somalia's cause at the United Nations on behalf of its transitional government.
Cameron said nations must help Somalis "create a representative government," ahead of the expiry of the transitional authority's mandate in August.
Many are skeptical the London talks can agree on concrete steps to address Somalia's complex problems — pirates who continue to target international shipping; al-Shabab which holds territory in the country's centre and south; and the effects of a lengthy famine which Britain's government estimates have killed between 50,000 and 100,000 people.
Others suspect the attention of Clinton and world leaders is currently focused on more urgent troubles, including the crisis in Syria — which will be discussed in meetings on the sidelines of the conference.
Western nations hope the conference will seek greater support for Somalia from the Arab world — and more prominent leadership from Turkey and Qatar.
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Matthew Lee contributed to this report
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