MOGADISHU, Somalia June 4 (Garowe Online) - Interim Somali Prime Minister Nur “Adde” Hassan Hussein flew from the capital Mogadishu to neighboring Djibouti Wednesday in a bid to bolster an ongoing peace initiative with Islamist rebels.

The Prime Minister’s trip to Djibouti City came a day after President Abdullahi Yusuf returned from Djibouti after meeting with United Nations Security Council officials there and calling for UN peacekeepers to replace Ethiopian troops deployed in Somalia.

Addressing journalists at his hotel, Prime Minister Nur Adde said he arrived in Djibouti to help strengthen UN-endorsed peace talks with his government’s opponents.

Somali Prime Minister Nur Adde

“We will take every step to move forward the Djibouti [peace] conference and I remain confident that the talks with succeed,” the Somali Premier said.

An aide to the Prime Minister told Garowe Online that the Somali leader will meet privately with the government’s peace talks delegation tonight.

Pullout?

A spokesman for the Somali opposition delegation in Djibouti City told reporters today that the group pulled out of a seminar after Ethiopia's ambassador to Djibouti arrived.

Dahir Mohamud Gelle said opposition delegates from the Eritrea-based Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS) decided to leave the seminar because it is "unnecessary" to sit with a member of the Ethiopian government, which he accused of committing "war crimes" in Somalia.

The spokesman indicated that the opposition delegates will not return to the peace conference until the Ethiopian ambassador – who was an observer today – leaves the peace venue.

So far, there has been no comment from UN Special Envoy to Somalia, Mr. Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, regarding the opposition's decision to pull out of the talks.

Source: Garowe Online