Somalia: Somaliland puts condition on talks with Federal Govt

ISTANBUL, Turkey, March 1, 2015 (Garowe Online)-Somaliland’s separatist administration has put condition on talks with Somalia Federal Government on Sunday, Garowe Online reports.

Delegations representing the two sides arrived in the Turkish city of Istanbul for Turkey-brokered bilateral talks.

Despite a two-day shift in the due date, negotiating teams have had a dinner overnight on Saturday at their hotel.

Interior and Foreign affairs Ministers Abdirahman Mohamed Odowa and Mohamed Bihi Yonis are respectively leading the two delegations.

Bihi said on BBC Somali Service that Somaliland’s bid for independence will be featuring atop the agendas in the course of the dialogue.

He also unveiled that they will not commence the dialogue until members in Somalia government and hail from Somaliland are side-lined.

Turkey have been brokering rounds of talks between the two sides since 2013, in a move that came less than a year after war-ravaged east African nation got first-ever permanent government in over two-decades.

On December 21, 2014, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and Somaliland leader signed a 6-point agreement under the auspices of Djiboutian President Ismail Omar Guelleh.

The separatist administration previously accused UN-backed weak central government of flouting airspace control agreement.

Somalia government is facing tough conundrum in the fight against Al Qaeda linked Al Shabaab militants on account of broad day light rampages, largely in volatile Mogadishu.

Somaliland, located in northwestern Somalia declared its independence from the rest of the country as de facto sovereign state but it has not been recognized internationally yet.

GAROWE ONLINE