23 Jun 2005

By C. Bryson Hull

NAIROBI, June 23 (Reuters) - Somalia's president and parliament speaker met on Thursday to heal a rift over the government's return home, while Washington urged a rapid completion of the relocation to end 14 years of anarchy.

The Somali government, formed at peace talks in the relative security of neighbouring Kenya last year, has begun in earnest its long-delayed return to the lawless Horn of Africa nation.

But there still remains a major split over where its base should be: the dangerous capital Mogadishu or the provincial town of Jowhar.

The U.S. State Department said in a statement the current Somali reconciliation process -- the 14th such attempt since warlords toppled military dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and ushered in a state of anarchy in 1991 - was at a critical stage.

"It is imperative that a viable national plan for relocation and security be formally agreed upon by a broad quorum," the statement said.

President Abdullahi Yusuf, who plans to return first to Jowhar to join Prime Minister Mohamed Ali Gedi and more than 70 legislators (MPs), and Parliament Speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan on Thursday held a third day of talks in Yemen's capital Sanaa.

U.S. APPLAUDS CIVIL INVOLVEMENT

A faction led by Sharif Hassan and several powerful warlords have already returned to Mogadishu, to prove their point that it is safe enough to be the government's home.

Yusuf flew to Yemen last week for the reconciliation talks after his government bade a formal farewell to Kenya, where it had to remain because of the lack of security at home in anarchic Somalia.

Presidential spokesman Yusuf Ismail Baribari said the talks were still ongoing "having in mind the utmost interests of the Somali people and by encouraging the dialogue within the framework of the transitional institutions."

Yemen's state news agency Saba quoted sources as saying efforts to heal the rift between the two sides "showed positive signs".

"Conciliation efforts are still continuing to bridge further gaps in points of view," it said without elaborating.

In Mogadishu, Religious Affairs Minister Omar Mahamud Mohamed, a warlord commonly known as Omar Finnish who is aligned with the speaker, said the talks were being watched keenly.

"If an agreement were reached between the president and speaker, of course it would have a positive impact on the rifts existing in the government," he told Reuters by telephone.

More than 100 MPs are in Mogadishu, where civil society groups have helped dismantle militia checkpoints used to extort money from drivers.

The United States, which withdrew from Somalia after a 1993 peacekeeping mission turned bloody, applauded "the central role played by Somali civil society in pushing for real and lasting security reform in Somalia." (Additional reporting by Mohamed Sudam in Sanaa and Guled Mohamed in Nairobi).