NAIROBI, June 25 (Reuters) - Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf said on Saturday talks to advance reconciliation in his lawless country would continue following an apparently failed meeting with parliament speaker Sharif Hassan in Yemen.
"The talks will continue until the target is reached or until there is no longer a need," Yusuf said in a brief statement released to Reuters in Nairobi.
The main bone of contention between the two men's rival factions in the interim Somali government -- formed at peace talks in the relative security of neighbouring Kenya last year -- is where the returning administration should make its base.
President Yusuf, his prime minister, Ali Mohamed Gedi, and lawmakers who support them say the capital Mogadishu is too dangerous and want to settle in the provincial town of Jowhar, 55 miles (90 km) north of Mogadishu.
But parliament speaker Sharif Hassan and 100 lawmakers he says are aligned with him argue the government must go to their traditional capital, as stipulated in the interim government's charter.
It is the 14th attempt to re-establish government in the anarchic Horn of Africa country, whose 10 million residents have been ruled by warlords since military dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was toppled in 1991.
Presidential spokesman Yusuf Baribari said the president's aim was "putting the country further along the road to peace and security in all the remaining districts and creating the best conditions for human and social development".
Baribari said the talks in Yemen were "another step forward" towards reconstruction.
Analysts say the apparent failure of the Yemen talks to agree on a base for the government did not bode well for future reconciliation efforts.
But Baribari said: "The president always encourages constructive dialogue for the utmost interest of the Somali people which is not negotiable for any personal gain."