President, prime minister begin week-long tour

Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed and Prime Minister Ali Muhammad Gedi on Thursday arrived in the town of Jowhar, 90 km north of Mogadishu, the Somali capital, to begin a week-long "meet the people" tour of various regions in the country, a local journalist told IRIN.

"Thousands of residents lined up the 16-km stretch of road between the town and the airstrip and many more waited at the residence where the President is expected to stay," Yusuf Ali Usman, a Jowhar-based journalist, said.

In Nairobi, the director of communications in Gedi's office, Hussein Jabiri, confirmed the leaders' departure. Yusuf and Gedi, accompanied by a large delegation of the Kenyan-based interim Somali government, arrived at Jowhar "at around noon local time".

Local leaders, led by faction leader Muhammad Umar Habeb, who is also the governor of Jowhar, received the delegation, Usman said.

Yusuf and Gedi had been due to make the trip on 23 February, but were delayed by logistical problems. The tour marks the first time they have stepped on Somali territory since Yusuf's election in October 2004 and his appointment of Gedi two months later.

The president’s spokesman, Yusuf Baribari, told IRIN the trip was part of the new government’s relocation process.

"[It] is a process which aims at open dialogue with the people, [to] listen very carefully to their concerns and [to] explain the government's policies and programmes," he said. "It is a bottom-up approach."

The delegation was expected to meet representatives of various sections of the population including elders, women, the youth, politicians, business and religious leaders.

The delegation is also due to visit the towns of Galkayo, Beletweyn and Baidao, all in southern and central Somalia. It was not immediately clear whether the two leaders would visit Mogadishu.

At least 40 members of the interim government left Nairobi on 16 February to prepare for Yusuf's visit. Some 80 members of the 275-strong parliament are also in Mogadishu as are military experts from various African countries who are in Somalia to assess the situation, ahead of the proposed deployment of a peace mission there.

The regional Inter-governmental Authority on Development, whose members are Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda, sponsored two years of peace talks between various Somali clans and factions, which culminated in the formation of the transitional federal government. The process ended a 14-year period during which Somalia lacked a functional central government.

The new government, which includes several faction leaders, has not been able to relocate from Nairobi to Somalia, citing security considerations. However, it has come under increasing pressure from the Kenyan government and western diplomats to do so.