SANAA (Islam Online & AFP) - Newly elected President of Somalia, Abdoulkassim Salat Hassan, and his opposition were in Sanaa on Wednesday for peace talks at the invitation of Yemen's President Ali Abdallah Saleh.

Yemen is working to finalize the reconciliation achieved in the Arta peace conference to bring about a total agreement in Somalia.

Warlords Hussein Mohammad Aidid, Osman Hassan Ali "Atto," Hussein Hajj and Mualed Maani traveled to Sanaa to listen to Yemen's opinion on a national reconciliation between the different Somali factions.

The official SABA news agency reported talks focused on the situation in Somalia in light of the Arta peace conference and the efforts deployed with the aim of achieving peace in Somalia.

Saleh reiterated the position of Yemen, which supports peace efforts in Somalia and an agreement between the different Somali factions.

According to Yemeni authorities, more than 500,000 Somali refugees live in Yemen.

Somalia has lacked a central government since the 1991 overthrow of Mohamed Siad Barre. Since then, rival warlords have ruled the lawless nation, while the north has broken away and declared its own unrecognized republic.

Members of a new national assembly elected Abdoulkassim Salat Hassan as Somalia's first president since 1991 on August 25th in Arta, Djibouti.

Salat, 58, a member of the dominant Hawiye clan, is the second Somali president to elected since Barre's fall. In May 1991, north Mogadishu strongman Ali Mahdi Mohamed was nominated as head of state but was forced to leave a few months later because of inter-clan violence.

Salat is likely to face fierce opposition from warlords who have condemned the Djibouti-led peace and reconciliation process that led to his election and his bid to establish a central government.

The warlords, for their part, expressed "their desire to reach peace and their gratitude for the efforts deployed by President Saleh to bring it about."

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