Somaliland’s government has delivered one of its most forceful rebukes yet to Mogadishu, with Information Minister Ahmed Yasin Sheikh Ali Ayanle, dismissing recent threats and political maneuvers from Somalia as “baseless” and incapable of shaking Somaliland’s sovereignty.
In remarks that bristled with defiance, Ayanle reminded Somalia’s leaders that Somaliland’s independence has been forged through decades of resistance to far greater powers. “We have already repelled those who are stronger than you,” he said, underscoring that successive regimes—military and otherwise—had tried and failed to subdue Somaliland’s will.
At the heart of the latest tensions are immigration and visa disputes. Mogadishu has sought to interfere with Somaliland’s visa processes, a move Ayanle described as politically motivated and doomed to fail. “They cannot stop the will of the Somaliland people,” he declared. “We have closed one visa and issued another.”
The minister framed the policy not only as a practical step but also as a political statement: no external government can dictate Somaliland’s airspace, ports, or immigration system. He accused Mogadishu of wasting energy “preoccupied with Somaliland’s affairs” instead of addressing its own insecurity—pointing to the Somali government’s struggles to fully control the capital.
Ayanle’s message, laced with nationalist pride, drew on Somaliland’s collective memory of survival under aerial bombardment and state violence in the 1980s. He insisted that the country would not be shaken today by symbolic restrictions or diplomatic gestures. “Even when we were attacked and bombed, we did not surrender,” he said.
By turning the dispute over visas into a broader assertion of sovereignty, the minister made clear that Somaliland views every external challenge as part of its long march toward international recognition. His words were both warning and declaration: Somaliland will not yield, and it will not allow its political, security, or social independence to be compromised.
For Mogadishu, the statement was a reminder that the struggle over legitimacy is far from settled. For Somaliland, it was another chance to affirm its trajectory—away from Somalia’s orbit and toward the recognition of a nation that, in its leaders’ words, has already proven it cannot be intimidated.
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