Somalia: No role for Puntland in reconciliation conference7 Mar...

Somalia: No role for Puntland in reconciliation conference
7 Mar 7, 2007 - 10:20:55 PM




GALKAYO, Somalia Mar 7 (Garowe Online) - The transitional president of the Somali federal government met with regional leaders in the northern sub-state of Puntland on Wednesday to hold talks over the economy, constitutional affairs and national security, officials said.

President Abdullahi Yusuf and a 9-member federal delegation arrived in the city of Galkayo yesterday after a trip to Arab countries.

Gen. Mohamud “Adde” Muse, the Puntland leader, was in Galkayo to partake in the discussions, along with several of his Cabinet ministers and the Speaker of the Puntland Parliament.

The delegations discussed appropriate ways Puntland and the transitional government could share funds donated by international aid agencies as well as funds generated from key Puntland installations such as the port of Bossaso.

Sources at the meet said both delegations supported measures to reform Puntland’s constitution, drafted in 1998, in order to achieve a balance of power between state governments and the federal authority.

The Transitional Federal Charter, drafted in 2004, led to the creation of the Somali federal government.

The Adde Muse administration’s controversial policy to license exploration rights to foreign companies has been a source of contention with the federal government.

It was on the sensitive matter of reconciliation that the federal and regional officials disagreed on the most, according to key sources at the meet.

President Yusuf’s government has been preparing to host a National Reconciliation Conference, scheduled to open in mid-April, whereby Somali clans and sub-clans would send delegates to resolve clan conflicts accrued over the past 16 years.

At the end of Wednesday’s discussions, “both sides agreed that Puntland would attend the National Reconciliation Conference not as a regional administration but as specific clans,” said one official on the condition of anonymity.

The government’s reconciliation plan has come under fire from different segments of society, including an outspoken parliamentarian who openly called for the government to negotiate with Islamic rebels.

The Islamists, who were removed from Mogadishu after loosing a December war to government and allied Ethiopian forces, are blamed for near daily violent attacks in Mogadishu.

Source: Garowe Online