TNG says it will not leave Kenya peace conference

A spokesman for TNG Prime Minister Hassan Abshir Farah said on Monday that Somalia's Transitional National Government was not planning to leave peace talks in Nairobi, Kenya, despite a meeting in Mogadishu at the weekend between the TNG and faction leaders. Ahmed Isse Awad, head of the prime minister's office, told IRIN the meeting was not an alternative to the Kenya conference. He described it as a consultative meeting to discuss ways of bringing stability to the Somali capital. The TNG and various faction leaders said on Saturday they had agreed on an administration for Mogadishu and measures to bring peace to the capital. This came after a closed door meeting between TNG President Abdiqassim Salad Hassan, faction leaders Mohamed Qanyare Afrah and Osman Ali Ato, and members of the Juba Valley Alliance and the Rahanwein Resistance Army (RRA). Qanyare reportedly said the meeting had also agreed to convene a national reconciliation conference in Somalia, because the conference in Nairobi - sponsored by the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) - was not achieving anything. Several groups attending the Nairobi talks on Monday held a joint press conference, at which they denounced the Mogadishu initiative. These groups included the opposition Somali Restoration and Reconciliation Council (SRRC), a TNG splinter group which has been supportive of the Nairobi conference, and representatives of civil society. SRRC co-chairman Hussein Aideed said the Mogadishu initiative had come from leaders who were now trying to undermine the Nairobi conference. He said the Nairobi peace talks were not collapsing but were soon to enter the crucial, power-sharing stage. Aideed called on those leaders in Mogadishu to come and take an active part in the process. He added that he hoped it would produce a broad-based government for Somalia by June. TNG splinter group leader Abdirahman Nur Mohammed Dinari told IRIN that he also saw the Mogadishu meeting as an attempt to undermine the Nairobi talks. Dinari said Mogadishu’s problems needed to be settled by all Somalis.