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Somaliland’s president is putting almost everything on the table in his campaign to win US recognition for the breakaway territory of Somalia, offering US investors access to a strategically located port and mineral resources while leaving open the possibility of expanded military access.
“We are not giving anything for free,” Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi “Irro” said in an interview with Semafor in Washington. “We have to offer something. And we expect the other partner [to have] the same or equal opportunities.”
Recognition is the prize, but economic cooperation, trade and investment can proceed in parallel. Somaliland can offer “our facilities and our minerals,” he said.
The US already has a military relationship with Somaliland, including training and security cooperation, but no military base there. The head of US Africa Command visited Hargeisa and Berbera last year as Washington continued to assess the territory’s strategic importance.
Irro is signaling that the relationship could go further. Military access for the US, Israel or other countries, he said, “is a negotiation.”
“I will not rule out,” he said of a future base agreement, arguing that any deal would depend on what Somaliland receives in return, including greater security and support for its forces.
Yinka’s view
Israel’s recognition in December changed the diplomatic equation on Somaliland’s status. It gave the breakaway territory its first recognition from a UN member state and, more importantly, demonstrated that the decades-old consensus against recognizing the territory could be broken.
Irro is now trying to turn that breakthrough into momentum. He is spending this week in Washington pressing his case at the White House and on Capitol Hill before heading to New York, where he hopes to meet other world leaders during the UN General Assembly and make the case for recognition.
The US is the next prize. Irro described America as the “big fish” Somaliland wants to pursue. “The earlier, the better is always better,” he said.
His appeal is also tailored to Trump. Somaliland could name Berbera’s airport after him, Irro suggested, or welcome him to build a Trump Tower in Hargeisa.
The message underneath the flattery is more consequential since Somaliland is no longer simply making a historical or moral case for recognition. Irro is trying to show Washington what recognition could buy.
Room for Disagreement
Somalia sees the proposition very differently. Mogadishu rejects Somaliland’s claim to sovereignty and considers Berbera, its coastline and its resources part of Somalia.
That makes Irro’s offer of strategic and commercial access politically contested before any foreign government or company accepts it. Israel’s recognition has sharpened that dispute, turning Somaliland’s push for wider recognition into a more consequential challenge to Somalia’s territorial claims.
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Geography is central to Irro’s proposition. Berbera sits on the Gulf of Aden, close to the Bab el-Mandeb, the narrow maritime gateway between the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. As conflict and disruption have put renewed pressure on the region’s sea lanes, Somaliland sees an opportunity to turn its location into diplomatic leverage.
Diego Garcia, the US military facility in the central Indian Ocean, lies thousands of kilometers away from the Red Sea theater. Berbera offers a far closer location for logistics, resupply or other military operations around the Gulf of Aden and Bab el-Mandab, even if it would not simply replace the much larger US presence on Diego Garcia.
Irro argued that American officials understand that strategic case. “They know that,” he said, pointing to US training and security cooperation already taking place in Somaliland.
His offer is deliberately open-ended. Somaliland is not announcing a new US base; it is signaling that greater access could be negotiated. “We are not giving anything for free,” Irro said, returning to the transactional logic behind his recognition campaign.
Step Back
Irro is also trying to sell Somaliland as an economic opportunity rather than simply a strategic outpost.
He points to Berbera’s port and free zone, an 850-kilometer coastline, fisheries and potentially significant oil, gas and mineral resources. Somaliland’s government budget has risen from less than $50 million when he became parliament speaker in 2005 to about $500 million today, he said.
The ambition is considerably bigger. Irro said Somaliland could be “very rich” within a decade and claimed its budget could eventually reach $3 billion-$4 billion a year if its marine economy and other resources are developed.
Recognition, in his view, would help unlock that potential by making it easier for US and other international investors to treat Somaliland as a conventional investment destination rather than an unrecognized territory.
The View From China
Irro’s push for US recognition does not mean he wants Somaliland locked into a single geopolitical camp.
Taiwan’s representative office will remain in Hargeisa despite Beijing’s opposition. “We have decided Taiwan to remain,” Irro said, noting that Taiwan was already present when he took office.
China is still welcome to invest. “If China is coming without condition, we will welcome China,” he said. Chinese companies already operate in Somaliland, he added.
The line Irro draws is political saying no foreign power will decide Somaliland’s diplomatic relationships. “Nobody can dictate to us,” he said.
Notable
- Somaliland is pitching itself as a bulwark against Iranian-backed militias in the Middle East, reports Politico.