Peace talks deadlocked

The Somali peace talks, underway in the Kenyan town of Eldoret, are deadlocked over representation in the various committees which are being set up to discuss the establishment of an all-inclusive government, sources close to the talks told IRIN on Tuesday.

Members of the leaders' committee (comprising representatives of faction leaders, the Transitional National Government and five members from civil society), which met on Monday, failed to agree on the number of participants each group would be allocated in the various committees, the sources said.

In an attempt to break the impasse, the mediating Inter-Governmental Authority on Development's (IGAD) technical committee and the Kenyan special envoy, Elijah Mwangale, were meeting members of the leaders' committee individually on Tuesday.

"They are trying and see if there is a possibility of bridging whatever gap may exist between their positions," the sources said. "If all goes well the committees should be able to start work by Thursday."

A Somali source at the talks, however, told IRIN the differences were such that "it will take more than two or three days to resolve them". He said membership of the committees was supposed to be in direct proportion to the number of delegates each group had originally been allotted for the peace conference.

"Therefore some clans will have more seats than others on the committees, and consequently the clan balance will be upset," he said. "There is a lot of confusion at the moment."