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Restoring Severed External Relations With Somalia

The month of July comes at a time president Hassan Sheik Mohamud is touring the neighboring countries in Africa and the Middle East. President Hassan visited UAE, Kenya, Djibouti, Eriteria and Egypt where he met his counterparts on strengthening collaboration between Somalia and those countries. Some of these countries have had political standoff between the recent government such as Kenya and UAE, Djibouti lost its position as a brotherly nation with Somalia and Egypt remained skeptical about the closer ties Somalia had with Ethiopia who’s its renaissance dam draw severe relations over the Nile water shares.

President HSM have as well paid an official two days’ visit to Turkey for bilateral relations and steps to enhance cooperation. The Ankara-Mogadishu partnership is "extremely positive and growing by the day and by the night," said the visiting Somali president on Tuesday. Speaking at a panel titled Benefits of the Türkiye-Somalia Partnership, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said: "Among the key benefits of Somalia's relationship with Türkiye is a strong political and diplomatic connection, and cooperation in the fight against global terrorism."

On the other hand, The Prime Minister of the federal government, Hamza Abdi Barre, asked the people of Somalia to support the Somali government forces to defeat Al-Shabaab and strengthen security. Hamza Abdi Barre said that the government is working on the coordination and cooperation of the Somali people and the government forces to bring about stability and to deal with insecurity. He cited the example of the people of the Somali regional government in Ethiopia, who supported the Liyu Police Force, to fight against Al-Shabaab which resulted in their defeat.

“The community must be enlightened and made aware of their strength, and they must come together to end the insecurity menace. We must believe that we can take one strong step forward to clear the terrorist threat,” said Hamza Abdi Barre. “We want scholars, businesspersons, students, women, and all different sections of society to work with our security forces and fight as long as we can,” said Hamza Abdi Barre. The Prime Minister of Somalia is expected to form his Council of Ministers by 4 August 2022.

Moreover, Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre outlined steps his government would take to launch operations to liberate territories under Al-Shabaab. “Our goal is to provide government services in areas to be liberated with special focus on decentralization,” said Hamza. He said the government would continue with economic reforms, but the principal focus of the government would be “a war against Al-Shabaab”.

Noteworthy, The Prime Minister of Federal Government of Somalia Hamza Abdi Barre, who is still working on the formation of the government, met with members of the Somali youth, the Somali women leaders, the civil society groups and the religious leaders asking their collaboration and support the government on improving security and taking collective measures to fight against Al-shabaab.



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