African leaders to meet over Somalia

Nairobi, Oct 27 (Xinhua) African leaders are due to meet in Kenya Tuesday to discuss ways to stabilise Somalia that has been hit by violence for more than a decade, Kenya's foreign affairs minister said Monday.

Moses Wetang'ula said the summit will review efforts of Somalia's transitional government to tackle law and order problems and build consensus among warring factions in the war-torn country since its establishment four years ago.

'We have only nine months left until the end of the Transitional Federal Charter,' Wetangula told journalists in Nairobi.

The minister was referring to the five-year transitional charter that was signed in February 2004 in Nairobi between Somalia's warring factions after protracted years of negotiations in the Kenyan capital.

The document called for a new constitution, formation of political parties and creating internal boundaries.

Wetangula said the two-day meeting is also expected to discuss problems of piracy in the Somali region.

Somalia's President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein and many other Somali lawmakers are already in Nairobi to attend the summit hosted by the seven-member regional mediating body IGAD.

The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) includes Djbouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda and Eritrea.