Somaliland Halts Talks with Somalia

[Deeq A.]

The President of the Republic of Somaliland, speaking to a joint session of the East African nation’s bi-cameral parliament, Sunday, confirmed that Somaliland indefinitely puts a stopper to the talks due to what he called a naked aggression which Somalia mounted against Somaliland.

“A resumption of the talks was scheduled to begin on March 19, 2018. We stopped that because the Mogadishu administration has mounted an unwarranted (political) offensive against our nationhood,” President Musa Bihi Abdi said.

The Somalia government started a war of attrition targeting the Republic of Somaliland’s resolve to make the 28-year old restoration of its independence an internationally recognized reality.

The Federal government President, Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo, and its Prime Minister Hassan Kheyrre, both repeatedly criticized an agreement which Somaliland entered with the UAE-owned DP World. On March 1, the agreement, which has been ratified by the Somaliland parliament on August 9, last year, was re-drawn and signed granting neighboring Ethiopia a 19-percent stake on the Berbera seaport development deal.

On March 5, the Lower House of the Mogadishu-based Federal government of Somalia backed the two top leaders direct opposition to the Somaliland deal with the UAE and Ethiopia despite the fact that the two sides agreed in 2014 not to interfere with or politicize each other’s development programs.

On March 15, Somalia’s Senate House concurred the Lower House Bill to ban the DP World from entry to ‘Somalia’, conveniently ignoring the fact that Somalia had not the least jurisdiction over Somaliland affairs since January 1991.

The Republic of Somaliland is a de facto so recognized by the international community whose successful, democracy, form of government, stability and law and order starkly contrasts the weak, chaotic semblance of administration in Mogadishu which is supported politically, militarily and economically by the international community at a stupendous cost.

Somtribune