Monday, November 20, 2006
Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi has invited influential speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden to return to the seat of government and resume his duties in the country's clan-based assembly.
"Parliament is in session today, the only person who is missing is the speaker and we have asked him back," Gedi told parliament in Baidoa, about 250km north-west of the capital.
Gedi said the decision to welcome Aden was made by a joint parliament-government committee.
Francois Fall, UN chief Kofi Annan's special representative for Somalia, who attended the session, lauded the decision to mend fences, but called on the government to seek lasting unity.
"We welcome the government's call on the speaker to return to Baidoa to resume his duties," said Fall, who travelled to Somalia for crisis talks with the government aimed at salvaging negotiations with powerful Islamists holding sway over much of the country's southern and central regions.
"Somalia is facing a very difficult moment. Your strength should be your unity. We want to prevent any action that might irreversibly damage the unity of the institutions," Fall told parliament.
But Gedi said his government managed convinced the UN envoy of its pursuit of unity.
"They (Fall's delegation) came to us worrying about the unity of the transitional federal institutions. When they have read our unified position, their concerns have been addressed," Gedi said.
"We urge the international community to unify its positions and act as one as we are doing in Somalia," he added.
Aden and the Islamists had agreed on November 5 on a formula to restart the third round of Islamists-government negotiations that collapsed on November 1 in Khartoum, but the government rejected that proposal, saying Aden had no authority to negotiate on its behalf.
Source: AFP, Nov 20, 2006