SOMALIA: UN envoy to IGAD ministerial meeting
The Chinese Xinhuanet reports:
A top UN envoy for Somalia is traveling to Somalia on Tuesday for a regional ministerial meeting this week in Jowhar, the provisional capital of Somalia, officials said here Monday. A statement from the UN Political Office of Somalia (UNPOS)said the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Somalia(SRSG) Francois Lonseny Fall will attend the first Ministerial Meeting of the Inter-governmental Authority on Development (IGAD)Council of Ministers which begins on Tuesday. “No part of the international community has greater responsibility towards Somalia than IGAD. The Somali national reconciliation process and the transitional federal institutions are very much IGAD’s babies,†said Fall. This week’s initiative is in line with the UN Security Council’s request urging IGAD, the African Union, the League of Arab States, European Union and concerned member states, to leverage their influence to ensure that Somalia’s transitional federal institutions reconcile their differences peacefully. The Somali transitional federal institutions moved to Somalia in 2004 from Kenya, where they were created after a reconciliation conference, but the administration has been divided over where the seat of government should be situated.