Somalilandsun: Djibouti whose president Ismail Omar Guelleh is in diplomatic attempts to revive stall internationally sanctioned talks between Somaliland and Somalia has announced the start of negotiations at Technical Committee level.
According to an announcement by the Djiboutian foreign minister Mahmoud Ali Yusuf proper technical Committee level between the two countries shall commence this week.
The said technical level meet is as a result of the final communique issued after the broadly acclaimed Consultative Summit on relations between Somaliland and Somalia hosted by president Guelleh last month.
The summit which was supported by various governments and organizations had in attendance the Ethiopian PM Abiy Ahmed, US Envoy to Somalia ambassador Donald Yamamoto, senior AU and IGAD representatives as well as numerous diplomats from countries with a stake in the Horn of Africa.
Definitely in attendance were the two summit principals president Muse Bihi Abdi and his Somalia counterpart Mohamed Abdilahi Farmajo.
The communique had informed that it was agreed for a technical committee to be composed of minister level negotiators from the two countries converge again in Djibouti after 45 days.
The due dates passed without a meet after postponed occasioned by a request from Somalia though no reasons were given, while authorities in Hargeisa responded by stating that the Somaliland team was not only ready but prepared whenever called upon.
Upon revelation by the Djiboutians that the Committee level negotiations shall commence this week, authorities in Mogadishu now devoid of another extension went on a fast gear to deter the meet.
According to Geeska Afrika sources the Somalia Federal Government has added four new members to its Technical Committee team for the negotiations. While the SFG has the mandate of appointing its own team members the choice reeks of mechanisms to Mar the President Guelleh initiative.
The sources divulge that the new members included in the SFG team are four in number and all are citizens of Somaliland currently residing in Mogadishu where they hold senior positions in that country.
In Somaliland the law stipulates that any of its citizens owing allegiance to Somalia is a traitor thence cannot be allowed back to this country and if caught perchance the state apparatus shall Institute legal proceedings leading to a very stiff stint in Prison.
The four traitorous citizens of Somaliland cojoined as members of the Somalia technical Committee for negotiations with Somaliland are
- Somalia minister of planning Jamal Mohamed Hasan,
- Somalia police commissioner Abdi Hasan Mohamed Xijaar
- Director General Somalia ministry of finance Suleiman Sheikh Omar and
- Director General Somalia ministry of Defence Ahmed Abokor Koishin
With this new membership Composition of its talks technical Committee it is undoubtable that the Somalia Federal Government is now overtly intended on disrupting the talks. In Hargeisa authorities are yet to react to this new development but the Somaliland stand on the issue is well known, that it shall not at any time hold Somalia related discussions with its traitors.
In all the six phases of the talks beginning in Chevening House London in 2012, then Dubai and the rest in Turkey the authorities in Mogadishu have always ended up refusing to implement any agreements reached prompting Somaliland to demand participation of International observers acting as guarantors in any future negotiations.
But to squarely put Somalia on the spot as pertains the talks demise due to non fulfillment of not a single agreement let’s reminiscence on what the president of Somaliland Muse Bihi said at the opening of the consultative summit in Djibouti.
“Somaliland remains committed to a peaceful co-existence with Somalia. However, Somaliland insists in that the dialogue should be a two state process with a substantive agenda that address the core issues of the dispute’”
On the oft failure to execute agreements by Somalia President Bihi terming a debacle said
“Today, how can we proceed to this dialogue, if the previously signed agreements in London, Istanbul and Djibouti were not implemented yet? We cordially propose that a serious mediation mechanism and a guarantor should be in place for this new round dialogue” said president Bihi as he laid blame of stalled talks on the shoulders of Somalia’s president Farmajo.
Now only time will tell if the much touted reconciliation prowess supported by the US, Ethiopia, African and IGAD among many others shall succeed in bringing Somaliland and Somalia to the negotiating table thus conclude three decades of animosity amicably
Read: President Bihi Conditions Resumption of Talks with Somalia to Sovereignty Recognition
