NAIROBI : UN Secretary General Kofi Annan urged delegates attending Somali peace talks in Kenya to clinch a final agreement and restore a functioning government in their chaotic African country.
"I am heartened by the progress you have made at this conference, especially in recent weeks. This time, all of us must get it right," Annan told more than 360 Somali delegates at the venue in Mbagathi, a suburb south of Nairobi.
"I appeal to you to rise above your differences and do all you can to bring your people an era of security, peace and hope," Annan said.
Warring factions signed a ceasefire agreement in October 2002 but it has been repeatedly violated.
Then, in January this year, they inked a landmark agreement outlining how a post-conflict Somalia would be governed in the five years after a final peace deal is signed.
"As you work for a political agreement, I urge you to keep in mind that progress in the political arena must be accompanied by serious efforts to improve the security on the ground," the UN chief said.
The peace talks, which started in October 2002, are currently in the final phase, with delegates attempting to share power among five major Somali clans, before electing a transitional president.
The delegates have indicated they might wrap up the exercise by the end of July. More than a dozen previous attempts have been made to negotiate an end to Somalia's anarchy, but few have brought in so many different players.
"It is up to the people of Somalia, and in particular its leaders, who must exhibit a profound sense of responsibility and statesmanship," Annan said.
"It's you who must make the compromises that will lead to a government with credibility throughout Somalia.
"Your people are looking to you with high expectations that you will end their suffering. The region and the wider world are watching carefully. We have all waited far too long to see the conflict in Somalia cease once and for all," he explained.
"Surely, what divides you at this point cannot be more important than the over-arching need to set your country on a new and more constructive course," Annan said.
He also urged them to successfully wrap up the talks by July 31.
"At this important juncture, I also call on the international community to provide prompt support so that Somalia's new governmental structure will receive the crucial support it needs in its early days," the UN chief said.
"Somalia cannot afford another false start," he added.
There has been no national governing authority in Somalia since 1991, when dicatator Mohamed Siad Barre was ousted.
There followed 13 years of factional bloodletting that turned Somalia into the archetypal "failed state" and prompted botched military and humanitarian intervention by the United Nations and the United States in the early 1990s.
Since Annan arrived in Africa last week, he has also visited war-ravaged western Sudanese region of Darfur to call for peace as well as Eritrea and Ethiopia to breath a new life in the stalled peace process.