Somali leaders have signed a reconciliation agreement negotiated during the government's recent national peace conference.

Somali Islamists and opposition leaders continue their meeting in the Eritrean capital, Asmara. The gathering comes shortly after the end of a six-week reconciliation conference in Mogadishu sponsored by the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG). Many opposition members refused to attend.

The United States Tuesday urged Somalia's transitional federal government to reach out as broadly as possible to clans and other factions for the national reconciliation conference planned for mid-July. The transitional government's prime minister, Ali Mohamed Gedi, met senior State Department officials in Washington Monday.

Authorities in Somalia say a roadside bomb blast has rocked the capital, Mogadishu. Authorities say the bomb was intended for a military convoy passing through northern Mogadishu Monday. Some reports say two children were killed in the attack. Other sources say the victims were wounded.

One day after Somalia's interim government postponed a national reconciliation conference for the third time in three months, some residents of Mogadishu are expressing doubt the conference can be held while Ethiopian troops are in the country. VOA Correspondent Alisha Ryu in Mogadishu reports that a late-night gun battle Wednesday between Ethiopian troops and insurgents in south Mogadishu has caused more people to flee their homes.

For the third time in three months, organizers of Somalia's national reconciliation conference, due to begin this week in the capital, have postponed the talks. As VOA Correspondent Alisha Ryu reports from Mogadishu, Somalis had widely expected another delay.

During an unannounced visit to Mogadishu today, the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs expressed solidarity with the people of Somalia while encouraging the leaders of the Transitional Federal Government to reach out to their opponents for the sake of peace and reconciliation in the war-torn Horn of Africa country.

An Italian official says Somalia's President Abdullahi Yusuf will allow members of the ousted Islamic Courts Union to take part in next month's reconciliation conference. But deputy foreign affairs minister Patrizia Sentinelli says the ICU members would have renounce violence and be chosen by their clans.

The head of the AU Commission - Alpha Omar Konare - is quoted as saying it would be a "catastrophe" if Ethiopian troops left Somalia before African Union peacekeepers were fully deployed. However, he says if Ethiopia attempts to reinforce its presence and remain, it could block political dialogue.