UN envoy welcomes call for cabinet meeting in Mogadishu

The UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Somalia, Francois Lonseny Fall, welcomed on Thursday a decision by Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Gedi to convene a meeting of the interim Somali cabinet in the capital, Mogadishu.

Fall took note of the fact that the meeting of the Transitional Federal Government's (TFG) cabinet would be preceded by consultations.

Gedi's invitation to ministers to attend the Mogadishu meeting was circulated at a gathering of representatives of the international community in Nairobi on Wednesday.

"The international community welcomed the prime minister’s initiative and promised material support for it," a statement issued by the Nairobi-based UN Political Office for Somalia, said. It did not say when the cabinet meeting would be held.

The invitation follows months of international efforts to help foster dialogue to resolve differences within Somalia's Transitional Federal Institutions (TFIs), including disagreement over where the TFIs should be located.

Gedi and President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed have set themselves up in the town of Jowhar, maintaining that Mogadishu is currently too insecure to be the seat of the transitional government.

The Speaker of the Parliament, Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden, some cabinet members and a number of parliamentarians, on the other hand, insist that Mogadishu is safe enough for the government to the city.

Fall urged the cabinet to seize the opportunity for consultations to move closer to reconciliation. "I encourage the prime minister to pursue this initiative, which is in the spirit of fostering dialogue within the Transitional Federal Institutions," he said.

He expressed hope that the proposed meeting would be followed by a full session of the parliament in accordance with the Transitional Federal Charter of Somalia.