www.chinaview.cn 2005-01-17 16:06:41
NAIROBI, Jan. 17 (Xinhuanet) -- The Somali transitional government will not relocate in Mogadishu from Kenyan capital Nairobi unless it is provided with funds and protection, local newspaper The Standard reported on Monday.
Although the new Somali cabinet has approved the move to go back to Mogadishu, it says the relocation exercise must be preceded by a deployment of a peacekeeping force, according to thereport.
"The Arab League, European Union and IGAD (the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development) member states must also fulfill their pledges before we can move out of Nairobi," a Somalicabinet minister was quoted as saying.
The Somali minister said the earliest his government could leave was after March -- on condition that funds were availed and other logistics put in place.
He said the Somali government was expected to make an appeal for support through the United Nations this week, the report said.
The Somali parliament, also based in Nairobi, passed a vote of confidence last Thursday on the new cabinet formed by Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Ghedi. Regional leaders have urged the new leadership should go back and rebuild the war-torn Horn of Africa country from within as soon as possible.
Earlier this month, the African Union has agreed in principle to deploy a peace support mission in Somalia.
The mission is expected to help install the country's transitional government, so far based in neighboring Kenya for security reasons.
Somalia has been effectively without a central government since dictator Mohammed Siad Barre was toppled in 1991, plunged the whole nation into a patchwork of fiefdoms governed by unruly warlords.
Last October, however, a parliament and presidency were set upin neighboring Kenya, pending their hoped-for installation in the Somali capital Mogadishu once the security situation there improves. Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed was elected president on October 10, 2004 by the new parliament.
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