Nearby agreement to form a new parliament in Somalia
Somalia, Politics, 1/27/2004

Diplomatic sources and negotiators at the Sudanese peace talks taking place in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi said yesterday that the sides have reached a settlement, according to which an agreement will be signed on Wednesday providing for forming a new parliament for the country, which was destroyed by the war since the collapse of the regime of President Muhammad Seyad Berri in 1991.

The sources explained that the Somali President, Abdi Qasem Salad Hassan, announced that the agreement will be signed on Wednesday in Nairobi before representatives of a group of Arab states following up the negotiations as observers.

The agreement's signing ceremony will be attended by the President of Kenya; Salad Hassan, and the representative of the Somali reconciliation and renewal council which includes a group of warlords who oppose the provisional government and supported by Ethiopia, as well as a representative for delegates to the peace talks which have been taking place in Kenya since October 2002 and a representative for the civil society in Somalia..

For his part, the leader of the Somali opposition war lord Hussein Muhammad Aided said that the Somalis agreed to solve their problems peacefully by signing an agreement that puts an end to the state of political chaos in the country.

According to diplomatic sources, the agreement states to form a parliament composed of 275 members appointed by the Somali groups instead of the previous provisional parliament which was composed of 350 members.

The talks currently taking place in Kenya among the Somali groups aim at forming the first recognized government in this country since the collapse of the regime of the Somali President Muhammad Seyad Berri. Since then Somalia have been subjected to the law of the warring war lords.

A provisional government was formed in 2000 during a conference sponsored by Djibouti, the country neighboring Somalia. This government, however, only controls quarters of Mogadishu. The warlords also did not recognize the current parliament which stemmed from Djibouti conference.

Previous Stories:
  Some 13 were killed, other wounded in tribal clashes in Somalia   (1/20/2004)
  IGAD urges Somali leaders to attend reconciliation conference   (12/10/2003)
  Prime minister of the Somali provisional government quits   (11/29/2003)

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