IGAD ministers meet in bid to kick-start Somali peace process

Foreign ministers from the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) opened a meeting in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on Friday in a bid to kick-start Somalia's faltering peace process, sources close to the talks said.

The ministers, from Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Sudan and Uganda, were meeting behind closed doors, but various Somali leaders were expected to join them "later this [Friday] evening or tomorrow," according to the source.

Somalia, which has had no functioning government since the overthrow in 1991 of the regime of Muhammad Siyad Barre, is nominally an IGAD member. A good number of leaders of the country's political and military groups were expected in Nairobi on Friday, sources said.

At Friday's meeting, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya and Uganda were represented by their foreign ministers, while Sudan sent a government official to represent its minister.

The meeting was intended to design strategies to expedite the peace process. In a statement issued after their meeting in Nairobi on 6 and 7 May, the ministers said the Somali peace process "should come to a successful conclusion latest by the end of July".

They "solemnly declared their total and unreserved commitment to unite in resolving the Somali problem once and for all", and "appealed to all the absent leaders to return to the conference" before 20 May, a ministerial statement said at the time.

The Somali talks, which have lasted over a year, have been in the doldrums ever since 29 January. On that date, Somali leaders signed what was then described as "a landmark breakthrough" agreement on contentious issues that had earlier plagued the talks.

A number of the same leaders later expressed reservations about the agreement, and called for the postponement of the third phase of the talks until "contentious issues" had been resolved. Others called for the next phase of talks to be convened in Somalia.

On Wednesday, however, an IGAD source told IRIN most of the Somali leaders had indicated they would attend this latest meeting. "Everything is on course. Most of them have indicated they will be there for the meetings with ministers and other partners," the source said. "We anticipate the launch of the final phase to go ahead."