Emerging Picture of Djibouti Summit on Its 2nd Day
Well connected sources in few different countries independently provided below assessment of day two discussions in the Djibouti summit between Somaliland and Somalia.
Emerging portrait out of Djibouti Summit indicates that expectations and high hopes for any meaningful outcome are soon fading away due to irreconcilable differences.
The Somaliland delegation presented the realities that need to be addressed and taken into account while the Somali delegation was still obsessive with its familiar territory of preserving the failed union.
The three presidents opened the session for the day two and left the technical committee to dig deeper into the issues.
Unexpectedly, president Farmaajo added his close aide Balal Osman to the Somalia delegation to the surprise of the PM, Speaker and Minister of Interior who’s theoretically the head of the Somalia technical delegation.
Balal, who carries the fancy title of “presidential envoy for Horn of Africa and the Red Sea”, started to project the image of the true representative of Farmaajo. His over-participation created tensions within the Somalia delegation, with senior ministers feeling overpowered.
The Somaliland delegation came across as far more prepared than the Somalia delegation in terms of substance and argument. However, Dr. Edna Aden’s extremist and radical views are unsettling participants of both sides.
At the request of Somaliland, Monday’s agenda focused on “depoliticizing humanitarian and development assistance”. Somaliland delegation demanded that Somalia commit publicly that it will no longer use the economy as a political leverage.
Somalia counter offered “everything except secession, confederation and referendum on self determination”. Somaliland rejected this offer.
The UK and few other countries are reassuring Somaliland to stick to its position regardless of the pressure
The competition between Djibouti and Kenya for a non-permanent UN Security Council seat is playing out here. Djibouti is leveraging the talks for its candidacy while Kenya is blocking a chartered flight from Nairobi that would have transported senior EU, AU and other officials to Djibouti until after the vote on 17 June.
It’s becoming all too apparent that the hype built up in the lead up to the talks for a potential “grand deal” is all but dead. Even progress on small issues are unlikely.
– US Ambassador Donald Yamamoto is engaged in shuttle diplomacy between the two delegation during break times. He told attending foreign diplomats that he’s less optimistic than yesterday.