By Helen Nyambura-Mwaura
NAIROBI (Reuters) - The African Union has urged Somalia's President Abdullahi Yusuf and the prime minister he sacked at the weekend to overcome their differences and work together for peace in the chaotic country.
Yusuf said on Sunday he had fired Hassan Hussein Nur after they disagreed over posts in a new cabinet, sought by donor countries and regional leaders at a time Islamist insurgents are poised on the outskirts of the capital.
The pair also differed on the direction of U.N.-hosted talks that aim to get the Western-backed government to share power with moderate Islamist opposition figures.
African Union Commission Chairman Jean Ping said the prime minister's dismissal would undermine efforts to bring peace and further weaken the transitional federal government.
"The chairperson ... urges them to overcome the internecine divisions that are consuming their energy, in order to meet the daunting challenges confronting their country," Ping said in a statement late on Sunday.
The African Union has 3,200 peacekeepers guarding key sites in Mogadishu, but Ethiopia has said the African troops plan to pull out when it withdraws its forces which have been propping up the government. Ethiopia plans to pull out within weeks.
The former prime minister headed the Red Crescent Society in Somalia before he was appointed after the dismissal of his predecessor, Ali Mohamed Gedi, late last year.
His falling out with Yusuf began when he fired former Mogadishu's mayor, a key ally of the president's, for allegedly misusing funds and over the worsening insecurity.
A local rights group says the insurgency had killed more than 16,200 civilians since the start of last year, when the allied Somali-Ethiopian forces drove the Islamists from the capital.
About 1 million people have been uprooted, and 3.2 million -- more than a third of the population -- need emergency aid. The chaos has also helped fuel kidnappings in Somalia and an explosion of piracy offshore.
Japan's foreign ministry stepped up its travel warnings for parts of neighbouring Kenya on Monday, urging Japanese nationals to postpone all travel to the Kenya-Somalia border area due to kidnappings and fighting between militants and Kenyan forces.
In November, Somali gunmen crossed the porous border and kidnapped two Italian nuns and their Kenyan driver.
Japan also stepped up its travel warning for the Kenyan Lamu islands that lie close to Somalia due to piracy in the area and recommended Japanese to avoid sea travel along the Kenyan coast.
(Editing by Matthew Tostevin)
