After talks aimed at reviving efforts to avert all-out conflict, the government said it would reconcile with the maverick parliament speaker after disassociating itself from a unilateral peace initiative he made to Islamist-held Mogadishu.
The UN envoy, Francois Fall, went to the government's temporary seat of Baidoa seeking to prevent the collapse of the Somalia's so-called "transitional federal institutions" -- the government and parliament.
In an address to lawmakers, Fall welcomed the government's decision to ask speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden to return to Baidoa from Mogadishu, where he travelled this month in an unauthorised, private initiative to seek peace with the Islamists.
"We welcome the government's call on the speaker to return to Baidoa to resume his duties," he said.
Earlier, Fall had told President Abdullahi Yousuf Ahmed, Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi and other officials that the international community was "very very concerned" a rift between parliament and the government could fuel war with the Islamists.
"Somalia is facing a very difficult moment. Your strength should be your unity," Fall said. "We want to prevent any action that might irreversibly damage the unity of the institutions."
Gedi, however, said a joint government-parliament committee had already decided to ask Aden to return.
"They came to us worrying about the unity of the transitional federal institutions. When they have read our unified position, their concerns have been addressed," Gedi said.
Aden incurred government wrath when he went to Mogadishu to broker a deal with the Islamists after the failure of a third round of peace talks in Khartoum on November 1.
A compromise he reached was rejected by the government, which said the speaker has no authority to negotiate on its behalf with Islamic leaders, some of whom are accused of Al-Qaeda ties.
The Khartoum talks broke down when the Islamists refused to meet the government until Ethiopian troops in Somalia to protect it are withdrawn.
Aden's proposal retains such demands, but drops Islamists' rejection of Kenya's participation as co-mediator with the Arab League.
It was not immediately clear if the decision to invite Aden back to Baidoa indicated a potential change in the government stance on returning to peace talks set to resume in mid-December.
"We didn't talk about that. We discussed the way forward. There is unanimity and unity and the federal institutions," Gedi told reporters.
"The dialogue between the Islamic courts and the transitional federal government should continue," Fall said.
Asked about the outcome of the talks, Fall replied: "It was a very successful meeting. We expressed our concerns and received all the assurances we needed."
The envoy added that he would meet the Islamists "as soon as it is possible."
Gedi said the government would resume talks without Islamist pre-conditions.
Security was tight on Falls's short drive from the airport to the presidential compound but people in his motorcade saw no indication of the thousands of Ethiopian troops believed to be in and around Baidoa to protect the government.
On walk to parliament surrounded by heavily armed soldiers, Gedi showed Fall the burnt-out wreckage of several vehicles destroyed in a September 18 suicide attempt to assassinate Yousuf.
The Islamists deny any involvement, but have declared holy war on Ethiopian troops protecting the government.
The Islamists seized Mogadishu from US-backed warlords in June and have since used the city as a base to take most of southern and central Somalia where they have imposed strict Sharia law.
The government controls only Baidoa and a few outlying pockets but is allied with authorities in the semi-autonomous north-eastern enclave of Puntland on which the Islamists are advancing.
In Puntland on Monday, President Addeh Museh said he would form a panel of experts to prepare a report on whether the region should be governed by Koranic law, in an apparent move to ease the Islamists' advance and distance himself from the government.
A report compiled by experts monitoring a 1992 UN arms embargo said the Somali situation contains "all of the ingredients for the increasing possibility of a violent, widespread, and protracted military conflict."

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2006