Somaliland: No more soft-treading on talks with Somalia – President Bihi

2
1073

On the second leg of a tour President Musa Bihi Abdi is making on the eastern regions of the republic, the President ruled out any talks with Somalia unless its leaders made plausible changes’ to their attitude towards Somaliland.

The President, speaking to a mass of people at Burao public square, Tuesday, accused the government of President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo of Mogadishu of continually trying to sabotage Somaliland progress and development at every turn.

He said no more would Somaliland tolerate or countenance the active opposition to talks between Somaliland and Somaliland on equal terms, pretending that it was the overall ruler of a non-existent Somalia which – in their minds – included Somaliland.

The president compared the Somaliland quest for sovereignty and a restoration of the independence it lost in 1960 to an ill-fated union with Italian Somalia to the decades-long struggle of Eritrea and its leader, Isaias Afwerki, even on the face of sweeping international, UN-drawn sanctions for the last 9 years.

“Afwerki chose not to cede an inch of his land against all odds. The world conceded a point and reversed its outlook, asking the Ethiopian leader to spearhead the reversal by letting go of Padme and bring the Eritrean leader back to the fold,” he said, adding that Somaliland was ready to go to any length to realize its right to sovereignty and self-determination.

“Unless Somalia brings back the independence we took to Mogadishu on good faith and it so callously usurped, no more will we talk with them,” he emphasized.

“Another union with Somalia is impossible one should understand, though,” he said, intimating that there was no change, otherwise, to Somaliland being open to other types of cooperation with its erstwhile, junior partner of 30 years.

Talks between the two countries which started in 2012 have stalled because of, Somaliland maintains, the intransigence and oblique attitude of latter-day Somalia leaders who had even tried to stop the trickle of international aid to Somalia.

“We notice not he who does not acknowledge us for who we are,” President Bihi emphatically underlined.

 

 

2 COMMENTS

  1. Hogaamiye Biihi can not and should not take decisions of his own on the fate of Somaliland and that is not in the interests of the people of Somaliland. Biihi is not a politician he has that old SNM mentality which only spreads hatred and division and that will only lead to ruins and failure. There will be no recognition for Somaliland without talking to Somalia period.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here