Just last week Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said he would not agree to a timetable to withdraw Ethiopia’s 10,000 troops from Somalia; at least that was the story headline. The body of the story was more didactic:

Speaking in parliament Thursday, the Ethiopian leader expressed impatience with the international community’s failure to respond adequately to the violence and lawlessness that has enveloped Somalia for the past 17 years.

He suggested it might soon be time to consider ending Ethiopia’s nearly two-year military campaign to prop up Somalia’s weak Transitional Federal Government.

I can imagine the US State Department pulling strings of, or at least loaning their playbook to, the Ethiopian government. The “we will not set a timeline to stabilize the country” speech sounds very familiar. There is, however, news of progress towards a cease-fire and phased withdrawal even without a timeline:

Wahde Belay, a spokesman for Ethiopia’s foreign ministry, said the [Oct 26th cease-fire] agreement is in line with Ethiopian interests and the Djibouti agreement signed in June.

“This is a confirmation of Ethiopia’s position on an orderly withdrawal from Somalia,” Wade said in an interview from the capital, Addis Ababa, today.

That agreement called for a UN stabilization force to replace Ethiopian troops in Somalia, even though the UN Security Council has shown little willingness to send troops to the beleagured Horn of Africa nation. Ethiopia had previously said it would await the arrival of 8,000 AU peacekeepers before withdrawing. Almost two years after the accord, only 3,400 AU troops have arrived.

The problem for Zenawi is that his precondition is unlikely to be met. He has called upon international forces to ensure formation of a stable government in Somalia before he will pull all his troops out, and at the same time the UN Security Council is scaling back its presence until there is more security. Some reports reveal that the new agreement was formed after Somalia agreed to try and settle things from within:

The government further agreed to form a 10,000 member joint police force with opposition militia members to maintain security in Mogadishu and other parts of Somalia.

In turn, the opposition faction of the Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia, led by Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, said it would observe a ceasefire in Somalia starting November 5th and to stop all hostilities.

A ceasefire agreement was initially signed in Djibouti in June, but the pact was rejected by the hard-line Asmara, Eritrea-based faction of the opposition alliance and by an al-Qaida-linked Islamist group called the Shabab.