A dozen Muslim-majority nations have condemned Israel’s appointment of a diplomatic envoy to the breakaway region of Somaliland.<\/p>\n
In a statement posted on social media by Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ministers from over a dozen governments, including Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan and Kuwait, called the move a\u00a0“flagrant violation”<\/em>\u00a0of Somalia’s territorial integrity.<\/p>\n The African Union also denounced the decision, saying any unilateral recognition of the territory is\u00a0“null and void.”<\/em>\u00a0It also warned that such actions risk undermining regional stability.<\/p>\n There are rumours of Israel planning to build a military base in Somaliland, which sits across the Gulf of Aden from Yemen.<\/p>\n It would allow Israel to conduct strategic airstrikes and attacks on its adversaries in the wider region, including Houthi rebels in Yemen, but also Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon.<\/p>\n In December, Israel officially recognised Somaliland as an independent state,\u00a0becoming the first country to do so. The move that provoked\u00a0an immediate international backlash.<\/p>\n On Wednesday, Israel announced Michael Lotem, its former ambassador to Kenya, as its first envoy to the territory.<\/p>\n Israel has granted diplomatic approval to Mohamed Hagi, a presidential adviser who helped broker the recognition, as Somaliland\u2019s first ambassador to Israel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A dozen Muslim-majority nations have condemned Israel’s appointment of a diplomatic envoy to the breakaway region of Somaliland. In a statement posted on social media by Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ministers from over a dozen governments, including Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan and Kuwait, called the move a\u00a0“flagrant violation”\u00a0of Somalia’s territorial integrity. The African Union […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":20191,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Africa News","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,2362,33],"tags":[1588,189,491],"class_list":["post-20558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-africa","category-featured","category-politics","tag-israel","tag-somalia","tag-somaliland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20558"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20559,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20558\/revisions\/20559"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}