Recognizing Somaliland: ‘Act of aggression’ or ‘opportunity’ for US?

Tensions have escalated in the Horn of Africa after Somalia canceled all bilateral agreements with the United Arab Emirates on Monday. The cutting of ties has led the UAE to lose access to key ports and military bases on the Gulf of Aden near the Red Sea.

“We tried to deal with them diplomatically, but now we have decided to take action,” Somalia’s Foreign Minister Ali Omar said. “Diplomacy didn’t work, and so now the constitution has to work.”

The dispute was nominally over the UAE transfer of a Yemeni separatist from Somaliland, the breakaway territory in the north of Somalia, to Mogadishu. However, hinting at deeper motivations behind the recent diplomatic upheaval, Omar said the transfer “was one of the reasons we took this action.