Monday, 13 June, 2005
The new Somali government is due to leave Kenya and return home, hoping to become the lawless country's first effective authority for 14 years.
The move has been delayed for nine months amid concerns over security in the Somali capital, Mogadishu.
Some have called for UN peacekeepers to be deployed in Somalia to stop armed militias disrupting the transition.
Kenya's president has hosted a farewell party, though a deep rift remains over where the government will be based.
New Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf told MPs attending a session on Sunday to return home and begin performing their duties.
He prefers relocating to the central towns of Baidoa and Jowhar until Mogadishu becomes less dangerous.
Failed
But the speaker of parliament and some 100 MPs, including the warlords who control most of the capital, insist that the government must set up in Mogadishu.
The speaker, Shariff Hassan Sheikh Aden, said he would not attend Monday's ceremony.
Because of the deep splits, some analysts are already saying that this peace process, like 14 others before it, has failed.
Last week, warlords began a process of dismantling roadblocks run by their gunmen in Mogadishu to help to make the city safer.
Earlier this year, a bomb blast went off in the city at a rally being addressed by Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Ghedi.
The MPs and ministers are being seen off at a special ceremony at Nairobi's Jomo Kenyatta airport on Monday.
"Let us be brave and go home," transitional President Yusuf told Somali lawmakers on Sunday, before announcing a two-month break for MPs.
The speaker immediately said that this recess was unconstitutional.
'Pleased'
Many ministers and MPs are going first to their home regions or abroad, officials say.
President Yusuf himself is not going directly to Somalia but to Qatar.
After hosting Somali peace talks since 2002, Kenya was keen for the MPs to return home.
"I am pleased to note that the transitional federal president of the republic of Somalia and his government... have finalised plans to relocate and are now ready to go back home," Kenyan minister John Koech told the Associated Press.
A spokesman for Mr Yusuf said some government departments would initially be distributed around all three towns, AP reports.
After 14 years of anarchy, nearly all government buildings have to be rebuilt - many are occupied by refugees who have fled fighting around the country.
The UN should lift an arms embargo on Somalia to allow the deployment of African peacekeepers, East African development group IGAD has said.
In addition, Mr Koech called for "necessary formalities" to be completed to allow UN peacekeepers into Somalia to protect the new government.
The African Union has promised to send peacekeepers to Somalia - however only when it is safe to do so.
Mogadishu's warlords and some Islamic groups do not want any foreign troops to be deployed.
Meanwhile, some 7,000 Somali refugees have entered Kenya since last week following fighting in Bur Hache town, close to the border.
Reports say more than 20 people have been killed in clashes between the rival Marehan and Garre clans for control of the town.