NAIROBI, Kenya — Somalia’s government has bowed to the inevitable and attempted to make a deal with the powerful Islamic militia controlling much of the country’s south.

Despite being internationally recognized and backed by the United Nations, the transitional government has failed to exert any influence outside its headquarters in the ruined town of Baidoa, 150 miles west of Mogadishu.

Now, administration officials say they are ready to hammer out a power-sharing pact with the Supreme Council of Islamic Courts, which defeated an American-backed alliance of warlords to take control of swaths of the country.

Ahead of talks between both sides yesterday in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, the government issued a statement calling for the first time for joint security forces.

It read: “The government proposes the creation of a Somali armed force, which consists of the army and the police by bringing together forces of the transitional federal government and the Islamic courts union.”

The two sides have been at loggerheads since the Arab League-mediated talks stalled in June over the Islamists’ demand that all foreign troops leave Somali soil.

The government is accused of calling in reinforcements from Ethiopia, a charge that President Yusuf and Addis Ababa both deny.

The government’s statement went on to affirm that Somalia should “co-exist peacefully with its neighboring countries, and neighboring countries should make no intervention, including military incursions.” It added: “They should not interfere with the internal affairs of Somalia,” warning that this “could bring further political destabilization.”

No immediate reaction came from officials of the delegation that was sent to the Khartoum talks by the Islamists.

The Islamists instead have given the government a list of demands, including that the administration should reverse its call for international peacekeepers, according to two government officials.

Mr. Yusuf’s government has called for international peacekeepers to be deployed in Somalia to help police any truce with the Islamists and to oversee the slow reconstruction of the ruined country.

But the Islamists’ leader, Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, who is on Washington’s terrorist watchlist, has rejected foreign peacekeepers outright.

Several diplomats have proposed that differences could be resolved if the Islamists were offered cabinet positions.

No official response has come to such suggestions, but comments from senior Somali figures point toward a closer relationship.

“We acknowledge the positive role that they [the Islamic courts] have played, and we want this to be realized as a whole for the betterment of Somalia,” Somalia’s ambassador in Kenya, Mohamed Affey, said.

The Islamic group’s foreign affairs chief, Ibrahim Hassan Adow, said foreign interference would be “a recipe for the renewal of civil war,” alluding to reports that Ethiopian troops had taken up position in three Somali towns in order to protect the government.