Somaliland’s president is putting almost everything on the table in his campaign to win US recognition for the breakaway territory of Somalia, offering US investors access to a strategically located port and mineral resources while leaving open the possibility of expanded military access.
“We are not giving anything for free,” Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi “Irro” said in an interview with Semafor in Washington. “We have to offer something. And we expect the other partner [to have] the same or equal opportunities.”
Recognition is the prize, but economic cooperation, trade and investment can proceed in parallel. Somaliland can offer “our facilities and our minerals,” he said.
The US already has a military relationship with Somaliland, including training and security cooperation, but no military base there. The head of US Africa Command visited Hargeisa and Berbera last year as Washington continued to assess the territory’s strategic importance.
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