Sa’ar leads ‘high-level’ delegation to Somaliland

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar arrived in Somaliland on Tuesday for an official visit 11 days after Jerusalem recognized the country.

The Somaliland government said that Sa’ar arrived in the capital Hargeisa as part of a “high-level” delegation. It added that senior officials received the Israelis at the airport.

Sa’ar stated that it was a “great privilege to carry out the first official state visit to Somaliland at the invitation of President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi.”

“The visit is also a message. We are determined to vigorously advance relations between Israel and Somaliland,” Sa’ar stated. He added that the group held “substantive discussions” with the Somaliland president and senior officials about the “full spectrum of relations between us.”

Jerusalem’s decision to establish diplomatic ties with Somaliland was “not directed against anyone,” Sa’ar stated. “Our shared goal is to promote the well-being of the two peoples and the two states.”

“In Hargeisa, I made it clear: Only Israel will decide whom it recognizes and with whom it maintains diplomatic relations,” he said.

Sa’ar added that the Somaliland president had accepted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s invitation to visit Jerusalem.

Somaliland is democracy with more than 6.2 million people that no other United Nations member state or international organization officially recognizes.

The country lies across the Gulf of Aden from Yemen, where Israel has been fighting the Iranian-backed Houthi terror group on the opposite shore of the narrow waterway linking the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean.

Netanyahu and Sa’ar signed a joint declaration with Hargeisa on Dec. 26.

“The State of Israel plans to immediately expand its relations with the Republic of Somaliland through extensive cooperation in the fields of agriculture, health, technology and economy,” Netanyahu stated.