French senator calls for tangible engagements with Somaliland

By M.A. Egge

French Senator Olivier Cadic has called for tangible engagements with Somaliland and at the same time the encouragement of Somaliland’s progress, when he was speaking at a debate in the Senate on the understanding of the African continent.

Sen Cadic, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the French Senate, who gave a speech at a session of the Senate on Thursday on the understanding of the continent of Arica, particularly focused on countries included Somaliland.

He said that Somaliland is a state in the Horn of Africa that re-asserted its independence in 1991 after the civil war in Somalia. Noting that Somalia which has been in conflict for more than 30 years has just had relations with Russia, which is evidenced by the recent visit of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Somalia to Moscow.

While talking about Somaliland’s achievements, he said, “Until Somaliland regained its independence it was able to guarantee political stability to its citizens by electing the President through a general election and two chambers, the Parliament and the Senate. Since independence, there have been five successive presidents at the helm of the country, which is rare in Africa and even elsewhere.”

Sen Cadic called on the international community to evaluate Somaliland’s development.

In calling for tangible engagements with Somaliland, he posed the question to the French parliament, “Are we evolving to the issue of Somaliland being officially considered to encourage its development or will we continue to be limited to the relationship with the Mogadishu administration?”.

On the other hand, the Somaliland representative to France Abdirahman Yasin Mohamed previously held meetings with the senator to discuss the relationship between the two countries.