UNITED NATIONS (Sputnik) — The UN Security Council (UNSC) welcomed the formation of a new cabinet in Somalia and urged the stabilization of areas recovered from al-Shabaab.
On February 9, Somali parliament approved a new cabinet of 25 ministers.
"The members of the Security Council welcomed the approval of the Cabinet list by the Federal Parliament of Somalia on 9 February," the Security Council said in a press release Tuesday.
The members of the Security Council stressed the importance of Somalia's leaders, including the new Government, the President and Parliament, to develop effective methods of preventing prolonged political crises in the future.
The ongoing political crisis in Somalia stems from 1991, when the clan-based opposition groups overthrew the Revolutionary Socialist Party. Since then, the country has been without an effective government, with the internationally-recognized federal authorities controlling only the capital city of Mogadishu and a part of central Somalia. The other areas in the country are self-governing or controlled by unrecognized state formations.
For the past seven years, the Mogadishu government has been under assault by the al-Shabaab Islamist group, which wants to topple the UN-backed government and create an Islamic state on the controlled territories.
