The Somaliland government has accused the governments of Somalia, Djibouti and Turkey of being part of a foreign intervention that it said was fueling the nearly year-long conflict in some of Somaliland’s western regions of Awdal and Salal.
Somaliland’s Minister of Interior, Abdalle Mohamed Arab, said the conflict was not based on internal ethnic conflict, but was, as he put it, “an external intervention” directed by foreign governments.
“The problem in the western regions was not about families fighting, it was an external intervention,” said Minister Abdalle, adding that Somalia and Djibouti were part of the intervention he was talking about.
The minister also said that after Somaliland gained recognition, what he described as “many enemies against Somaliland” emerged, specifically mentioning Turkey. “We are not going to let Turkey down, it is an intervention that is working to prevent these people from finding peace,” he said.
Abdalle Mohamed Arab also described the conflict in western Somaliland as similar to the previous incidents in Lascaanod, saying that the land dispute was used to disrupt peace efforts that the local clans wanted to hold.
He said that incidents such as the vehicles on the road were, as he pointed out, an attempt to thwart a peace conference that the clans wanted to hold. On the other hand, the Minister said that the people of these areas have lived together for a long time, and have not historically had any ongoing communal conflict.
“The local people are people who are committed to the cause of Somaliland, who are born together and have never killed each other,” he said.
The Minister of Interior’s remarks come at a time when a peace conference to resolve the conflict in the western regions of Somaliland recently opened in these areas, the first phase of which was an agreement to strengthen peace and social harmony.
The Somaliland government sees the efforts of the conference as a step towards ending the long-standing conflicts.
