Interim parliament prepares to meet in Baidoa

Preparations for a meeting of Somalia's interim parliament in Baidoa have begun, following a decision by the president and the speaker to convene the house inside Somalia for the first time since it was created in neighbouring Kenya in 2004.

"Two teams of MPs [members of parliament] from Mogadishu and Nairobi are going to Baidoa within the next three days as an advance party to lay the groundwork for the meeting," said Isak Nur, an MP who is close to Sharif Hassan Shaykh Aden, the speaker of the Transitional Federal Parliament.

"I am confident that the session will take place as scheduled," he added.

On Monday, Aden announced that the parliament would meet on 26 February in Baidoa town, 240 km southwest of Mogadishu. The statement, which was made in the presence of interim President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, came after days of consultations between the speaker and the president in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

Francois Lonseny Fall, the United Nations Secretary-General's Special Representative for Somalia, welcomed the decision to convene parliament, describing it as "a very positive development".

"The future of their country is now in their hands," Fall said. He urged Somali MPs to attend the meeting and put the interests of the nation above their own.

In June 2005, the transitional government moved to Somalia from Kenya. It has remained divided, however, over two key issues: the deployment of peacekeepers from neighbouring countries and the location of the seat of government.

Yusuf, Prime Minister Ali Muhammed Gedi and their supporters are based in Jowhar, 90 km north of Mogadishu, because they consider the capital unsafe.

Other MPs, led by Aden, are in Mogadishu, where they are trying to restore stability after nearly 15 years of factional warfare following the toppling in 1991 of the regime of the late president Muhammad Siyad Barre.

On Monday, Aden told IRIN in an interview that divisions with the Somalia transitional institution's were "almost at an end".

"We have made some achievements...but divisions within the government have hampered our efforts. Today, those divisions are almost at an end," he said.

See full interview