Arab League mediators meet govt and Islamic delegations

Arab League diplomats trying to reconcile Somalia's transitional government with the Islamic leaders who control Mogadishu met representives from both sides in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, on Thursday, but face-to-face discussions between the two parties were yet to take place, a member of one of the delegations said.

Shaykh Bashir Adow, a member of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) delegation, told IRIN that both groups were also scheduled to meet Sudan's President Umar el-Bashir later on Thursday. "We have had no a face-to-face meeting the TFG (Transitional Federal Government] delegation, but I expect that will happen soon," he said.

Somalia's interim President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed was leading the TFG delegation, which also included Prime Minister Ali Muhammad Gedi and speaker of the transitional parliament Sharif Hassan Shaykh Aden.

Earlier this week Yusuf appeared to be abandoning an earlier reconciliatory tone the TFG had adopted with regard to the UIC, whose forces took control of the Somali capital early this month after routing an alliance of warlords whose militias have held sway in the city since the early 1990s.

During a visit to Ethiopia on Tuesday, Yusuf appeared less eager for dialogue with the UIC than he was when the Islamic leaders defeated the warlords in Mogadishu. "There is a government in Somalia and as long as the Islamic Court Union recognises the government (...) and if they harbour democratic processes, then we will negotiate and open dialogue with them," Yusuf told reporters in Addis Ababa.

Somalia is currently without a fully-fledged national administration and has been wracked by civil strife since 1991 when the regime led by Muhammad Siyad Barre was toppled.