IGAD ministers to meet on Somali peace process

A meeting of the foreign ministers of Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya to discuss the Somali peace process, originally fixed for 16 August, has now been scheduled for the 23rd, a Kenyan official told IRIN. The three countries have been mandated by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) to take the lead in preparing for the Somali reconciliation conference, which is to be held in Kenya.

An IGAD technical committee completed its report last week, after ending a fact-finding mission to Somalia, during which it held talks with the Transitional National Government (TNG) and all other groups. The committee, whose membership comprises representatives from the front-line states of Djibouti, Kenya and Ethiopia, was established by the foreign ministers of the IGAD member states when they met in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, in February.

The committee's mandate comprises monitoring the Somali peace process, as well as drawing up the terms of reference of the forthcoming conference, determining the criteria for participation and deciding on the number of participants.

The date for the ministerial meeting had been put back "because of logistical and time constraints", a source involved in the Somali reconciliation process told IRIN. "There was inadequate communication between the hosts [Kenya] and the other members of the committee," said the source.

The ministerial meeting, which is expected to discuss the technical committee's report "will either approve it in its entirety, or make some changes to it", said the Kenyan official.

The ministers were also expected to discuss the number of participants to be invited to attend the conference and set a definitive date for it, the source told IRIN.

The talks, which are expected to bring together the TNG and other Somali parties, had originally been scheduled to take place in April, but were subsequently repeatedly postponed.