{"id":36955,"date":"2026-06-12T15:44:48","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T13:44:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&p=36955"},"modified":"2026-06-12T15:44:48","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T13:44:48","slug":"somaliland-state-that-it-has-a-right-to-choose-its-relationships-as-it-opens-new-taiwan-office","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/somaliland-state-that-it-has-a-right-to-choose-its-relationships-as-it-opens-new-taiwan-office\/","title":{"rendered":"Somaliland state that it has a right to choose its relationships as it opens new Taiwan office"},"content":{"rendered":"
Somaliland has a right to choose its \u200bown relationships and pressure tactics from Beijing and Mogadishu have not succeeded \u200cin altering its friendship with Taipei, its top diplomat in Taiwan said on Friday at the opening of a new office.<\/div>\n
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Strategically situated on the Horn of Africa, Somaliland has enjoyed effective autonomy and relative peace \u200band stability, since 1991, when it broke away from Somalia as that country \u200bdescended into civil war.<\/div>\n
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Somaliland and Taiwan, claimed by China as its own \u2060territory and likewise diplomatically isolated, set up representative offices in each other’s capitals in 2020.<\/div>\n
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Speaking \u200bto reporters at the opening, Somaliland’s representative to Taiwan, Mahmoud Adam Jama Galaal, said the \u200bisland was a “very important ally”.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Asked about Beijing and Mogadishu wanting Somaliland to end those ties, Galaal said its main political parties were united in not succumbing to political pressure.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
“We have the right to choose who \u200bwe have relationships with. It’s our prerogative, and so it hasn’t been successful as \u200bfar as pressure tactics,” Galaal said, saying his government has not had any communication with China recently.<\/div>\n
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Taiwan says \u200bit has a right to engage with other countries and that Beijing has no legal basis to claim \u200bthe island or represent it on the international stage.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
–Reuters–<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":36956,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-36955","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"'Somaliland has a right to choose its \u200bown relationships'","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/36955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/36955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36957,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/36955\/revisions\/36957"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=36955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}