Premier postpones formation of cabinet

The prime minister of Somalia's Transitional National Government (TNG), Hasan Abshir Farah, has postponed the formation of a new cabinet, a senior TNG official told IRIN on Monday. According to Abdirahman Dinari, the TNG director of information, Abshir did so in order to give the reconciliation process a boost by sending a message to the TNGs opponents that anyone willing to join the government will be accomodated. "A new cabinet will not be named until the reconciliation conference in Nairobi [due to start this week]," Dinari said. The Kenyan government is hosting the national reconciliation conference which is expected to bring together the TNG and factions opposed to it, a Kenyan government source told IRIN. The source said most of the important faction leaders had indicated their willingness to attend, and it is understood that Abshir is delaying the annoncement of a new government until he knows which of the government's former opponents will now be willing to join the TNG. Dinari said that the postponement would "allow factions to participate in the formation of the new government". Hasan Abshir was named Prime Minister on 12 November to replace former premier Ali Khalif Galayr who was voted out of office by the Transitional National Assembly (TNA) in a vote of no-confidence in late October. The newly appointed prime minister told IRIN a day after his appointment that his first priority was national reconciliation. "We must complete the reconciliation process as we promised," he said at the time. "Everything else depends on that." Hasan Abshir said he would adopt a two-track approach. "I want to start with the factions opposed to the TNG, while on the other hand talk to the regions which have administrations," he said, referring to the self-declared republic of Somaliland, northwestern Somalia, and the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland, northeastern Somalia.