Peace talks get new lease of life

The stalled Somali peace talks, which were being held in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, have been given a new lease of life after Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni saved them from collapse. After arriving in Nairobi on 8 January, Museveni, the current chairman of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), immediately held talks with the Somali leaders who were due to take part the next day in a retreat designed to revive the peace talks. He then went on to launch the retreat itself on Friday, an IGAD official told IRIN. The retreat - originally fixed to have opened in Mombasa on 9 December, but postponed until 18 December, then yet again until 9 January - was seen as "an opportunity to jump-start the process and move it out of the current impasse", said James Kiboi, another IGAD official. Awad Ahmad Ashara, the spokesman of the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland told IRIN that the current consultations were "breathing new life" into the peace process. Ashara said the president of the Transitional National Government (TNG) of Somalia, Abdiqassim Salad Hassan, who was participating in the proceedings again after having absented himself earlier, had shown courage in returning to the talks. "He made an historic move in the interest of the Somali people," Ashara asserted. Meanwhile, the retreat has remained in Nairobi rather than moving to Mombasa as earlier planned, said the IGAD official. "They [leaders] opted to stay in Nairobi and continue with their consultations without interference. We [IGAD and international community] are here to encourage them and help if and when needed," he said. Abdiqassim walked out of the peace talks in July last year, saying they were leading to the "dismemberment" of Somalia, but returned after being invited to do so by Museveni. The TNG spokesman, Abdirahman Adan Ibbi, who is also the fisheries minister, told IRIN that soon after the launch of the retreat the Somali leaders had started talking to each other. "The mood is one of reconciliation, mixed with a new sense of optimism." "The intervention of Museveni was the ice-breaker," Asha Haji Ilmi, a civil society leader, told IRIN on Monday. The leaders were meeting without mediators "with a new sense of purpose", she said. "There is a new air of optimism. We dare to hope," she said. She warned, however, that they needed to grasp this opportunity. "We [Somalis] need to consolidate this new momentum for it to bear fruit." "The Somali people need more than crocodile tears". Kenyan Foreign Minister Kalonzo Musyoka has also been involved "in intense behind the scenes attempts" to bring the Somali leaders together, a Somali source told IRIN. "He patiently and doggedly pushed the leaders to talk, and it seems to be paying off". The IGAD-sponsored talks, which opened in Kenya over a year ago, have been dogged by wrangles over issues such as an interim charter, the number of conferees and the selection of future parliamentarians. Many Somalis and international observers have described the retreat as the last chance to salvage the peace process.