18/11/08 (B474) Shabelle avec AFP 16/11 / Le Premier ministre somalien accuse le Président du GNT de bloquer le processus de paix et de contribuer au développement de la violence dans le pays. Somali PM charges president of leading violence (En Anglais – Info lecteur)

Somali Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein has accused the countrys president of blocking the creation of a new cabinet, undermining efforts to restore stability in the country.

Hussein said President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed had refused to approve a new cabinet list seen as a key step in ending nearly two decades of bloodletting.

The Somali president is responsible for the failure of the transitional federal government to achieve its goal of forming a new cabinet, he told reporters in Nairobi.

I presented the list of ministers and assistant ministers to the president, but he rejected it, Hussein added.

It is unfortunate that the president has become the first to oppose the IGAD directives though he was one of the signatories.

At a summit in October in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), set a deadline of November 12 for the feuding sides to agree to a new transitional government.

Ethiopia, which currently chairs IGAD, has troops in Somalia supporting the struggling government there against Islamist insurgents.

Hussein and Yusuf met in Ethiopia last week, but failed to agree how to implement the Nairobi declaration, which includes naming a new cabinet.

According to the timelines agreed at Nairobi, this should have been finalised on Wednesday last week.

Regional leaders say in-fighting in the Somali government and unrelenting Islamist insurgency in Mogadishu, has stalled government and parliamentary operations, choking efforts to restore stability in the country.