Top leaders endorse reconciliation plan

A Mogadishu-based group of Somali political leaders has endorsed an agreement that encourages reconciliation between the various groups in the country’s transitional government.

"They have accepted and endorsed the Aden declaration and I have a mandate to continue with our discussions to end our differences," said Sharif Hassan Shaykh Aden, speaker of the Transitional Federal Parliament, on Monday.

The Aden declaration, signed on 5 January by interim President Abdullahi Yusuf and Aden, called on "the members of the parliament and government to put aside their fruitless squabbles and differences, urging them to unite, placing the supreme interest of the nation above other interests."

The agreement was signed following a three-day meeting between the speaker and the president in the Yemeni city of Aden. The two leaders also agreed that the first session of parliament in Somalia would convene within 30 days.

In June 2005, the transitional government moved to Somalia from Kenya, where it was created in 2004. It has remained divided, however, over two key issues: the deployment of peacekeepers from neighbouring countries and the location of Somalia’s seat of government.

Yusuf, Prime Minister Ali Muhammad Gedi and their supporters pitched camp in Jowhar, 90 km north of Mogadishu, citing the city's insecurity as the reason behind their decision not to work from the capital.

Other MPs, led by Aden, went to Mogadishu, saying they would try to restore stability to the capital, which was largely destroyed during nearly 15 years of factional warfare following the toppling in 1991 of President Muhammad Siyad Barre.

Aden, who spent the last week in Mogadishu trying to sell the agreement to his allies, said parliament would reconvene at the end of January. "I am collecting the views of parliamentarians about the venue of the session," he said.

"I am hopeful and optimistic this time we will resolve our differences and give our people a government that will deliver their needs," Aden said.