NAIROBI, (insidesomalia.org) - The ailing president of Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG) will travel to London this week on a routine medical checkup, his spokesman told reporters in Mogadishu on Monday.

President Abdullahi Yusuf is in Nairobi, Kenya, where a heads of state summit hosted by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) recently ended with regional leaders issuing a set of standards for the TFG to meet before its mandate expires in mid-2009.

"The President is healthy…I deny false reports that he is ill," presidential spokesman Hussein Mohamed "Hubsired" said.

He indicated that the Somali leader will soon travel to a hospital in the United Kingdom, where President Yusuf will reportedly undergo a "routine" medical check up.

Yusuf, 73, has been living with a liver-transplant since 1996 and has paid regular medical visits to London since being elected president four years ago.

The IGAD leaders, including Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi who deployed troops to protect the TFG in Mogadishu, issued a communiqué requiring the Somali government to meet time-based benchmarks.

Somali Prime Minister Nur "Adde" Hassan Hussein has publicly pledged to implement key decisions issued by IGAD, including drawing up domestic borders, drafting a new constitution and forming a unity government.

But inside sources tell Garowe Online that President Yusuf has distanced himself from the Prime Minister's declaration that he will exclude ten pro-Yusuf ministers from the new Cabinet, following a parliamentary decision that has stirred political infighting.

Somalia's last effective central government collapsed in 1991 and the Ethiopian-backed TFG is the international community's 14th attempt since to restore national order.

Islamist rebels have waged a relentless two-year insurgency to expel Ethiopian forces, who are considered an occupation army by the majority of Somalis.

President Yusuf's health has been a concern for many years, especially for some Somali lawmakers who have called for his resignation due to health-related reasons.