Israel’s recognition of Somaliland ‘strange, unexpected’: Somali president 

Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has told Al Jazeera that Israel’s “unexpected and strange” recognition of Somaliland may have implications for Palestinians in Gaza.

“Somaliland has been claiming the secession issue for a long time, over the past three decades, and no one country in the world has recognised it,” Mohamud told Al Jazeera in an exclusive interview from Istanbul, Turkiye, on Tuesday.

“For us, we’ve been trying to reunite the country in a peaceful manner,” the Somali leader added. “So, after 34 years, it was very unexpected and strange that Israel, out of nowhere, just jumped in and said, ‘We recognise Somaliland’.”

Israel last week became the first and only country to formally recognise Somaliland, a breakaway region in northwest Somalia, bordering the Gulf of Aden.

Somalia’s president also told Al Jazeera that, according to Somali intelligence, Somaliland has accepted three Israeli conditions in exchange for Israeli recognition: the resettlement of Palestinians, the establishment of an Israeli military base on the coast of the Gulf of Aden, and Somaliland joining the Abraham Accords. The accords are a set of pacts establishing the normalisation of ties between Israel and several Arab states. The UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan have signed onto the accords.

Mohamud also said that Somalia has intelligence indicating there is already a certain level of Israeli presence in Somaliland, and Israeli recognition of the region is merely a normalisation of what was already happening covertly.

Israel will resort to forcibly displacing Palestinians to Somalia, and its presence in the region is not for peace, the Somali leader added.

A 20-point plan released by the administration of US President Donald Trump ahead of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza said that “no one will be forced to leave Gaza, and those who wish to leave will be free to do so and free to return”.

However, Israel has reportedly continued to explore ways to displace Palestinians from the besieged and occupied territory, including in mysterious flights to South Africa, which has formally accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza.

Israel is also seeking to control strategically important waterways connecting vital seas of commercial and economic significance, namely the Red Sea, the Gulf and the Gulf of Aden, Mohamud said.

The Somali leader was in Turkiye on Tuesday, where he gave a joint news conference with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with the two leaders warning that Israel’s recognition of the breakaway region could destabilise the Horn of Africa.

Somaliland declared independence from Somalia in 1991, but had failed to gain recognition from any United Nations member state, before Israel changed its position last Friday.

Israel’s move was swiftly condemned, including by most members of the UN Security Council at an emergency meeting convened in New York on Monday.

The United States was the only member of the 15-seat body that defended Israel’s move, although it stressed that the US’s position on Somaliland remained unchanged.