CAIRO, Dec 23: Two powerful factions of Somalia have signed a power-sharing agreement pledging to end violence in the strife-torn east African nation.

If the Cairo document, signed last evening by Hussein Mohamed Aidid and Ali Mahdi Mohammed, survives it will give the civil war-ravaged Somalia its first real government since 1991, when rebel factions usurped power from Mohammed Siad Barre.

``Let the world hear from us... There will be no more shooting and killing. There will be no more factions, no more warlords, no more division,'' said Aidid.

Ali Mahdi said, ``If yesterday we were two groups opposing each other, today I announce here we are one group.'' After more than a month of talks in Egypt, the faction leaders agreed on the number of delegates their groups would send to a national reconciliation conference to be held in the Somali town of Baidoa on February 15, 1998.

The conference will elect a presidential council, a prime minister and adopt a charter on peace and cooperation, according to the agreement titled ``The Somali Declaration of Principles''. The charter is expected to provide a framework for a national transitional government ``for the protection of individual rights''. More than 200,000 people have died of fighting in the past seven years. The factions of Aidid and Ali Mahdi will have 80 representatives each in the 465-member conference, while the rest will be from other clans and sub-clans.

``Somali leaders desire lasting peace, stability and an end to the conflict and civil war in Somalia,'' the declaration said. The factions also agreed unanimously to a cease-fire. The talks in Cairo was sponsored by Egypt and the Arab league, which set up a fund to finance the Baidoa meet next year.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.