New twist appears in Somali peace talks after assembly inaugurated

www.chinaview.cn 2004-08-24 02:11:24

NAIROBI, Aug. 23 (Xinhuanet) -- Over 40 delegates from the breakaway Somali territory of Puntland on Monday threatened to quit peace talks in Kenya, posing a new trouble to Somalia which has just inaugurated a new assembly to unite the country.

All the forty-one delegates from Puntland will quit talks on Tuesday unless the selection process of members of parliament is not interfered, a Puntland official who sought anonymity told Xinhua in Nairobi.

At least 45 members of the 275-seat body were not present on Sunday during the swearing-in ceremony held in UN's headquarters in Nairobi because of disagreements on how to share the number of positions allocated to them.

Each of Somalia's four major clans was allocated 61 seats in the proposed 275-member parliament, while an alliance of minority clans would have 31 members of parliament.

The official said some mediator of the peace talks was working against the rules of procedure which requires only the genuine traditional leaders to endorse names of the selected members of parliament.

"If our list of the members of parliament is not allowed to pass through and this country tries to short change any of our MPs,Puntland will be forced to withdraw from the conference," he threatened.

"Puntland will withdraw if the country will insist to apply pressure to include individuals who are not official delegates at the conference," he added.

Puntland declared itself autonomous from the rest of Somalia in1998 after the collapse of Siad Barre's regime in 1991 plunged the country into bloodletting and its withdrawal will be a major setback to two-years efforts aimed at restoring a central government in the war-ravaged Horn of Africa nation.

A speaker and two deputy speakers will be elected later from among the parliamentarians to preside over the election of the president, who will in turn appoint a prime minister mandated to form a government.

Mediators hope the assembly will be a key step toward restoring order after years of anarchy and violence.

There have been 14 unsuccessful attempts to start a constitutional process.

This latest attempt by the east African organization, the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), backed by the UnitedNations, began to seek a resolution in October 2002.

The warring factions and main politicians signed a peace accordand a transitional charter in January 2004.

The IGAD-sponsored Somali National Reconciliation Conference began in October 2002 in the western Kenyan town of Eldoret, and was moved to Nairobi in February 2003.

IGAD groups Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Sudan and Uganda. Somalia is also a member, but is not fully represented because it lacks a functioning government.

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