Somali FM to UAE: We are not cheap tools to implement your demands

SANAA, June 29 (YPA) – Foreign Minister of Somalia Ahmed Issa has stated that the United Arab Emirates has presented an offer to the Federal Republic of Somalia, which he described as “ridiculous.” The minister stressed that the Somali response was a hard no, in a statement to Somalia News.

The Emirati government reportedly offered to reopen the Sheikh Zayed Hospital in the Somali capital of Mogadishu, in exchange for Somalia joining the war against Yemen and officially claiming the Socotra archipelago as Somali territory.

Sheikh Zayed Hospital was an Emirati-run health institution that offered free healthcare to Somali citizens. It was closed by the UAE back in 2018, as part of a diplomatic row between Abu Dhabi and Mogadishu.

“Somalis are not cheap tools used to implement your demands (…) Yemen is a neighbour and a brotherly country. and has its own sovereignty and dignity of its people,” Foreign Minister Ahmed Issa said.

“The world knows that Socotra is Yemeni land, and has been from ancient times,” he concluded

E.M