Somalia’s Federal state of Puntland warned on Thursday of the risks of a civil war, after delegates sitting for the establishment of a new Federal state in the Central region of Somalia signed a controversial constitution.
The delegates of the Conference passed on Wednesday a controversial constitution, claiming the new state’s boundary is close to Burtinle district, which is less than 70-kilometres South of Garowe, the capital of Puntland.
One of the Puntland’s weekly cabinet meeting agenda held in Garowe concerned the on-going conference in Adado district, insisting the conference doesn’t comply with the Federal provisional constitution.
‘’Puntland clarifies that if the Conference continues in this way, it can lead to a civil war…. Puntland is capable enough to defend its territories and people,’’ read a Press statement from the Office of Puntland President Abdiweli Mohammed Ali.
A long-standing wrangle has been going on since the middle of last year over the formation of the new state after parts of it have been included some of Puntland territories – Northern Mudug.
As stated in the provisional constitution, two or more states are only allowed to form a federal state.
Responding to the Puntland accusatory note, elders of the Central regions called the Puntland statement as an incendiary precursor of strife and hostility between the peoples of Mudug.
“The people of Mudug had not been ethnically divided in observing peace and co-existence among themselves,” the elders Spokesperson, Chief Yassin Mohamed Ghani, said in a press conference the elders held today.
” I ask,” he added “of our brethren in Puntland to welcome the state we are building here and to not read threats it does not pose to anybody into it. The administration we are establishing is to systemize and attend to the prevailing administrative, economic and social ills in the regions concerned,” he said
Horseed Media & Shabelle Media sources
