Reemphasizing a resolution they reached earlier, the Somaliland Cabinet of Ministers urged international development partners as well as all foreign embassies operating in Somaliland/Somalia to abide by national constitution and by-laws regarding correct address, colours, emblem and the like.
The Cabinet of Ministers at their regular, weekly, Thursday meeting repeated that they expected all international partners to observe the correct decorum, etiquette in dealing with the Republic of Somaliland.
“They must not violate national laws and its land, air and maritime borders in any way,” a press statement released after the meeting was concluded said.
Likewise, the statement established, the partners and foreign missions were to use the correct address, emblem, map and flag of the Republic of Somaliland on projects and programmes documents and in formal addresses. Nothing short of that was to be accepted, it added.
“No programme that is not signed with the government of Somaliland can be implemented on Somaliland soil,” the statement added.
The statement comes at a time it has become something of a norm that programmes afore approved by the rival Villa Somalia administration trickle down to Somaliland in one form or another as almost all foreign representations reside in the beleaguered Somalia capital of Mogadishu’s heavily fortified Halane compound.
Relations between the two sides, also, had been somewhat strained in recent days by what international partners see as a calculated stringency on mattering relating to the country’s democratic process, among many more issues, on the part of the Bihi government.
