East African foreign ministers on Thursday urged Somali delegates attending a reconciliation conference in Kenya to count on the prevailing international goodwill to rise above their differences and create an all-inclusive government in their troubled country.

The ministers from the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) were confident that the process of forging a parliament representing the country's numerous warring clans would beat the July 31 deadline and urged those who have not distributed seats among the sub-clans to do so.

"You can continue to count on the international goodwill and support until this process is successfully concluded and normalcy restored in Somalia," Kenyan Foreign Minister Chirau Makwere told the opening meeting of the two-day IGAD Ministerial Facilitation Committee in Nairobi.

The people of Somalia have waited for too long for the restoration of peace and stability in their country and therefore, the incumbent leaders should rise above parochial interests and put the wider interests of Somalis first, the Kenyan minister noted.

Mediators in the Somali peace process have urged the delegates to honor the July 31 deadline set by the IGAD as the end of the last stage of the peace talks.

Kenyan mediator Bethwel Kiplgat is optimistic that a new government will be established in Somalia very soon.

Somalia has been without a functioning government and torn apart by factional warfare since the toppling in 1991 of the regime of Muhammad Siyad Barre.

The talks, sponsored by the IGAD, began in October 2002 in the western Kenyan town of Eldoret and moved to Nairobi in February 2003.

The talks have been dogged by wrangles over issues such as an interim charter, the number of participants and the selection of future parliamentarians.