UN official for Somalia visits Moscow and Stockholm for talks on consolidating peace

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s Special Representative for Somalia will visit Moscow and Stockholm this week in his effort to find a peaceful solution to differences within the Somali Transitional Federal Institutions (TFIs), including strongly held views on where they should be based.

“The Security Council has expressed deep concern about the persistent state of insecurity in Somalia and the absence of political dialogue,” Ambassador Francois Lonsény Fall said. “During informal consultations this month (4 October) Council members stressed the need to reactivate political dialogue between the leaders of the transitional federal institutions and drew particular attention to the need for an agreement among the TFI leaders on a National Security and Stabilization Plan and its implementation.”

The Council also urged the international community and the neighbouring countries to continue to support an inclusive political dialogue among the TFI leaders in the Horn of Africa country, he said.

The leaders’ differences include the location of the TFIs. President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed and Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Gedi have relocated to Jowhar, maintaining that the capital, Mogadishu, is insecure. Speaker of the Parliament Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden, some cabinet members and a number of parliamentarians have insisted that Mogadishu is safe and that the Government belongs there.

Mr. Fall’s visit to Moscow tomorrow comes at the invitation of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. They will exchange views on how best to restore peace and security in Somalia, the UN Political Office for Somalia (UNPOS) said.

The envoy will then travel to Stockholm, where he will discuss the latest developments with Swedish State Secretary for International Cooperation and Development Annika Soder and other representatives of the Swedish Government, it said.

Somalia has been without a functioning central government since the collapse of President Muhammad Siad Barre’s regime in 1991.

Meanwhile, reporting a sharp recent rise in violations of the arms embargo against Somalia, a UN monitoring group recently recommended that the Security Council cut the funding available to former warlords in the war-ravaged country by imposing an "integrated embargo" covering the export of charcoal and fish originating there and a ban on foreign vessels fishing in Somali waters.