MOGADISHU, Somalia, April 1 (UPI) -- Leaders of war-town Somalia have been urged to end their boycott and return to the peace talks currently under way at Nairobi.
Several thousand Somalis, mostly women and children, demonstrated Wednesday in Mogadishu's main stadium, urging the country's factions to respect an earlier agreement and resume peace negotiations.
"The message from the demonstrators was that the warlords have to respect agreements and return to the talks," Abdullahi Shirwa, head of Peaceline, one of the groups that organized the demonstration, told IRIN from Mogadishu. "We see the conference as the best option for the Somali people."
A number of faction leaders walked out of peace talks in Nairobi, and started holding meetings in March in the town of Jowhar, north of Mogadishu. Awad Ashara, a spokesman for the self-declared region of Puntland in northeastern Somalia, told the U.N. Integrated Regional Information Networks "outstanding issues" remained from phase two of the peace talks.
