First batch of MPs leave for Mogadishu

The first group of members of parliament of the Kenyan-based Somali government left Nairobi on Tuesday for Mogadishu in a move that marked the beginning of the new administration's relocation back home.

"Thirty MPs left last night for Mogadishu - it is an inclusive group from all Somali clans," Hussein Jabiri, the director of communications in the interim Somali Prime Minister's office told IRIN on Wednesday.

Once in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, he said, the MPs would "lay the groundwork for the return of the whole government". The delegation included Muse Sudi Yalahow, a powerful former Mogadishu-based faction leader and a member of the cabinet, and the second deputy speaker of parliament, Usman Ilmi Boqore.

The MPs were also expected to report back on the political and security situation in Mogadishu, Jabiri said.

The Somali transitional government had formed, in January, three teams composed of cabinet ministers to begin arrangements for relocation.

The new government, which includes several faction leaders, has not been able to relocate from Nairobi to Mogadishu, citing security considerations. However, it has come under increasing pressure from the Kenyan government and western diplomats to install itself in Mogadishu.

There hade been reports of a split within the government over the relocation, with President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, supported by some cabinet ministers, insisting that foreign peacekeepers should be deployed in Mogadishu before the government moves there, Somali political sources told IRIN.

Prime Minister Ali Muhammad Gedi, on the other hand, wanted part of the cabinet to relocate to Mogadishu to "assess the situation on whether peacekeepers are needed or not" rather than condition moving the government to Mogadishu on the deployment of foreign troops, a source said.

The government however denied reports of a split within its ranks over the deployment of foreign peacekeeping troops and the establishment the administration in Mogadishu.

"I am not aware of any such split," Aden Ibbi Abdirahman, the state minister for parliamentary relations, told IRIN on Monday.

Ibbi, who is a member of the relocation committee, added, "I think it is a figment of someone's imagination."

The situation was made more complicated by the recent killings in Mogadishu of a senior policeman and some military officers.

Jabiri said that another group of MPs, led by the Speaker of Parliament, Sharif Hassan Shaykh Aden, would fly to Mogadishu on 5 February.

Somalia's transitional federal parliament elected Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed as president on 10 October, a culmination of a two-year reconciliation conference sponsored by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development that brought representatives from various clans and factions together.