Newly elected Somali President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed on Sunday held meetings with senior security officials and local clan leaders in the capital Mogadishu over security and the need to open reconciliation talks with insurgent groups which are opposed to the Somali transitional government.
President Ahmed, who arrived in Mogadishu on Saturday for the first time since his election on Jan. 31, held "consultative talks " with ministers in the caretaker government, security chiefs and local religious and clan leaders, Abdulahi Qadar, the presidential spokesman, said.
Under the agreement between the transitional government and the opposition coalition, the Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia (ARS), the two sides would form a joint force to maintain the security of the capital.
"With the security chiefs it was agreed that the process of the integration between the Somali government forces and those from the ARS will be speeded up to jointly ensure the security of the capital," Qadar told Xinhua.
The Somali president also held talks with religious and clan elders in Mogadishu and both sides have agreed that the national reconciliation should continue and talks with the opposition groups should begin urgently.
A number of insurgent group, including the newly formed Hezbul Islam and the hardline Al-Shabaab movement, have rejected the results of the talks between the transitional government and the ARS which led to the power-sharing agreement between the two sides and the election of the moderate Islamist leader Ahmed as president.
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