Somali president said Sunday his government would pursue dialogue and reconciliation in his Horn of Africa nation despite failure to resolve the differences with the parliament speaker.
In a statement issued in Nairobi, President Abdullahi Yusuf said he would continue advancing reconciliation drives in Somalia until the lawless nation stabilizes.
"The president always encourages constructive dialogue within the legal framework of the transitional federal institutions for the utmost interest of the Somali people which is not negotiable for any personal gain," said the statement sent here Sunday.
"The president's aim is to put 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," the statement said.
"The talks will continue until the target is reached or until there is no longer a need," Yusuf noted in the statement.
President Yusuf and Parliament Speaker Sheikh Shariff Hassan Adan have been holding talks in Yemen to resolve disagreements that have split Somalia's fledgling government.
However, the two leaders failed to agree on where the government should be based.
The interim Somali government, which relocated from Kenya on June 13 where it was formed at peace talks last year, is deeply split on where it should be based.
A section of the government including the speaker disagreed with the decision to install the administration in Jowhar, and in May moved to Mogadishu saying it wanted to restore normalcy to the city so the government could operate from there.
Others allied with President Yusuf returned to Jowhar, north of the capital last week. They argue the capital must be pacified before the government can fully relocate there because Yusuf comes from the northeastern Puntland region and does not have a support base in Mogadishu.
The talks in Yemen were also supposed to cover the deployment of UN peacekeepers in Somalia to stop armed militias disrupting the transition.
Yusuf wants peacekeepers but Adan's faction says they are not necessary.
Analysts warn that if the speaker goes ahead to convene a session of parliament in Mogadishu next week and if half of the 275 lawmakers attend, they may consider a vote of nonconfidence in the president, further broadening the rift.
Somalia had no functional central authority for the 14 years following the collapse in 1991 of the government of Muhammad Siad Barre.