New UAE envoy presents copy of his credentials to Somalia FM

By : Zakeriye ahmed Horndiplomat Correspondent

Somalia’s Foreign Minister Abshir Omar Huruse received a copy of the credentials of the UAE’s newly appointed ambassador to Somalia, Ahmed Juma Al Rumaithi, in Mogadishu.

The UAE’s newly appointed ambassador, Ahmed Juma Al Rumaithi, will replace UAE’s top longest-serving diplomat in Somalia, Mohamed Ahmed Al-Othman.

The new envoy comes days after several UAE military cargo planes were seen in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Puntland city of Bosaso airport, where local believes that Dubai will set a military base in Puntland’s area facing the gulf of Aden.

During Somalia’s former 9th President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo’s tenure, the relationship between Somalia and UAE was wrecking. In April 2018, Somalia’s government seized $9.6 million in cash from a UAE plane in Mogadishu, which they later described as illegal money.

In January, Somalia’s President Mohamed Farmaajo ordered the country’s central bank, governer Abdirahman Mohamed, not to release the $9.6 million seized from the UAE after Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble publicly apologized to the UAE for the seizure and announced his government would give the money back.

In May, Somalia’s Prime Minister, Mohamed Hussein Rooble, released $9.6 million seized from UAE at Mogadishu airport in 2018 before travelling to Abu Dhabi to extend his government’s condolences to UAE over the death of their President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan.