By Guled Mohamed
NAIROBI, Sept 8 (Reuters) - The United Nations moved staff out of Somalia's makeshift capital Jowhar on Thursday and appealed for restraint as a militia deployment raised the potential for fighting between rival government factions.
The U.N. said it had moved 13 international staff to Nairobi and the Somali town of Wajid.
Somalia's transitional federal government is deeply split over where it should be based while security is restored in the anarchic Horn of Africa nation.
One faction led by President Abdullahi Yusuf is in Jowhar and another in Mogadishu, leaving the 14th attempt to restore government to Somalia since 1991 stuck in a stalemate that has grown acrimonious.
Francois Lonseny Fall, the U.N. special representative to Somalia, said the rift was undermining the progress made at peace talks that created the transitional government last year.
"I am concerned at the escalation of tensions in Jowhar and Mogadishu, and appeal for restraint from all parties whatever their differences," Fall said in a statement.
"It's high time that the transitional federal institutions begin to function as intended."
The movement of militia into Jowhar prompted accusations that Yusuf, an ally of traditional Somali rival Ethiopia, had brought in Ethiopian troops with the aim of attacking the Mogadishu-based faction.
Information Minister Mohamed Abdi Hayr said the troops were Somalis who will eventually form a national security force.
"The Somali Republic categorically denies any foreign troops to have arrived in Jowhar or any other town," Hayr said in a statement.
"Every sovereign nation is duty bound to create and equip its national police force and army and as such Somalia is no exception at all."
The Mogadishu faction, led by powerful warlords in the government, is vehemently opposed to the presence of foreign troops -- particularly from Ethiopia -- during efforts to restore security.
It is also opposed to making Jowhar, 90 km north of Mogadishu, a temporary capital, arguing that Mogadishu is safe enough and must be the capital as Somalia's transitional charter states.
Sheikh Yusuf Inda'ade, who is aligned to the warlords in Mogadishu and controls the neighbouring Lower Shabelle region, told local media that Ethiopian troops armed with heavy battlewagons had arrived in Jowhar.
Somalia has been without an effective central government since warlords ousted dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 and ushered in an era of anarchy, where militias rule by the gun.