Wednesday, July 25, 2007
"We ask leaders of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Courts in Somalia, former members of parliament and those throwing bombs in the capital to attend the talks," said Abdurrahman Abdi Hussein, deputy Chairman of the NGRC, as the conference entered the sixth day in the Somali capital, Mogadishu.
"They (opposition groups) can attend the talks under whatever capacity or name they want. As long as they attend, they are welcome," he said.
Hussein also expressed the Somali transitional government's commitment to meet the opposition groups wherever they want, saying the government will do whatever it takes to bring peace to Somalia.
Analysts here see this as a major shift of government stance which earlier maintained that the conference is meant to reconcile the Somali clans and that anyone attending should participate under the umbrella of the clan they hail from.
Somali transitional government said that it had extended invitation to members of the Islamic Courts Union but saying " known terrorist will not attend."
It is not yet clear whether the Somali government agrees with the new stance of the NRGC which it has formed but said it is independent.
Islamist leaders and deposed members of the transitional federal parliament now based in the Eritrean capital of Asmara have repeatedly said they will not attend the talks which they said is designed to give legitimacy to "Ethiopian occupation of Somalia." They demanded that Ethiopian troops withdraw and a neutral venue for the talks as a precondition to their participation in the conference.
The conference currently underway in the restive capital city has been delayed for three times due to logistical and technical reasons. According to the Somali government, more than 1,000 delegates from Somalia's myriad of clans are attending the talks, which has become the target of a number of mortars attacks by suspected Islamist insurgency who have been waging a wave of guerrilla attacks targeting Somali and Ethiopian troops and officials in the capital.
Somalia has been without a central government since warlords overthrew former ruler Mohamed Siyad Barre in 1991 until the current Transitional Federal Government was formed following prolonged peace talks in the Kenyan capital Nairobi in 2004.
Source: Xinhua, July 25, 2007