MOGADISHU, SOMALIA – President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said in an interview reported on Monday 5 October that relations with the United Arab Emirates have not been cut, that both countries keep their embassies open, and that the Emirates is a very important country with which his government will keep working to improve ties. In the same interview he said Mogadishu has suspended every agreement between the two governments, most of them on security and the armed forces, and accused Abu Dhabi of dealing with Somaliland politically and diplomatically and encouraging it to secede. Four days earlier his defence minister said opposition leaders meeting in Abu Dhabi were studying how Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces work for those who employ them, and on Sunday the president signed a summit communique with Sudan’s army government, which cut relations with the United Arab Emirates last year.
What the President Said About the United Arab Emirates
“The Emirates is an important country, we have relations, we keep an embassy and theirs is open too, the relations have not ended,” President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said, according to the Somali text of the interview. “We have suspended all the agreements that existed between us,” he said, adding that most of them concerned security and military forces, and that efforts to improve relations with Abu Dhabi would continue.
The United States, he said, does not deal politically with Somaliland, while the United Arab Emirates deals with it politically and diplomatically and encourages it to separate from Somalia. Talks between the president and Massad Boulos, the senior adviser to the US president for Middle Eastern and African affairs, were reported on Sunday 4 October, the day before the Emirati remarks, and covered security cooperation, state institutions and regional stability. The president had visited Addis Ababa on 29 September and Djibouti on 30 September before travelling on to Egypt.
In parts of the same interview reported from Saturday 3 October, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said Somalia would not accept an Israeli presence on its territory under any circumstances, said Israel plans a naval base and airport use at Berbera, and offered Ethiopia two or three Somali ports without naming them. He said al-Shabaab would never again take control of the whole country. Somaliland’s foreign ministry rejected his remarks on Saturday 3 October, saying Mogadishu had no authority over Somaliland’s foreign relations and restating that Somaliland withdrew from the union on 18 May 1991. The ministry also defended its ties with Israel and backed Ethiopia’s access to the sea under the memorandum of understanding Hargeisa signed with Addis Ababa in January 2024.
Israel recognised Somaliland in December 2025, and when Mogadishu broke with Abu Dhabi a month later, one Somali analyst said many Somalis believed the United Arab Emirates had helped bring that recognition about. Somaliland’s president, Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi, made an official visit to Israel in June, and Somaliland has since opened an embassy in Jerusalem.
The Cancellation of 12 January
The president’s council of ministers cancelled all agreements with the United Arab Emirates on Monday 12 January 2026, covering port operations, security cooperation and defence. Defence Minister Ahmed Moalim Fiqi said the decision rested on reliable reports and evidence of Emirati practices that undermined Somalia’s sovereignty, national unity and political independence. The deals affected included the Emirati port and development arrangements at Berbera, Bosaso and Kismayo, all three of them in territory where Mogadishu’s writ is disputed by Somaliland, Puntland or Jubaland.
The next day President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said the Emirates had not dealt with Somalia as a single independent state, that it worked through several channels without the federal government’s knowledge or consent, and that Mogadishu had asked it to treat Somalia as one country and to end what he called a covert approach. Somaliland’s presidency minister answered that the United Arab Emirates remained a trusted partner, and Puntland and Jubaland, which were already disputing the federal constitutional changes, rejected the cancellation. Within a week Somalia was in talks to join a military cooperation pact with Saudi Arabia and Egypt, at a moment of open rivalry between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi over Yemen and the Red Sea.
On Monday 20 June 2022, a month after his election, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud arrived in Abu Dhabi on his first trip abroad since returning to office, received at the presidential terminal by Sheikh Shakhboot bin Nahyan, an Emirati minister of state. Three and a half years later he told Somalis that Mogadishu had urged the Emirates repeatedly to treat Somalia as one country before it acted, and promised that Somalia would stay open to cooperation built on transparency and full recognition of its unity and constitutional authority. On Monday 5 October he confirmed that the January suspension still stands, while describing the relationship it suspended as one his government wants to improve.
Abu Dhabi as a Charge Against the Opposition
On Thursday 1 October Defence Minister Ahmed Moalim Fiqi said that politicians meeting in Abu Dhabi had no political future in Somalia and were studying how the RSF does the work of those who employ it, and warned that every traitor to the nation would get what he deserved. The men reported to have been in Abu Dhabi were former president Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, President Said Abdullahi Deni of Puntland, President Ahmed Madobe of Jubaland and the former intelligence chief Abdullahi Sanbalolshe. Sharif Sheikh Ahmed had said in July that his connection to the United Arab Emirates was personal.
Sudan’s army-led government cut relations with the United Arab Emirates in May 2025, accusing it of arming the Rapid Support Forces, which Abu Dhabi denies. Fiqi’s remark set two sitting federal member state presidents and a former head of state beside a paramilitary force at war with the government in Khartoum, and four days later his president described the country hosting them as very important. Fiqi was also the minister who announced the January cancellation, citing reliable reports and evidence against the Emirates, and in January his president had said the Emirates was working through several channels without Mogadishu’s knowledge or consent.
The Somali Future Council, which includes President Said Abdullahi Deni and President Ahmed Madobe, wrote to the UN Security Council on 11 and 24 September asking for UN-backed mediation and an independent investigation of the Doolow strike, and Puntland wrote separately in a letter dated 13 September. The federal government answered Puntland’s letter through its interior minister and its prime minister, who said on 26 September that President Said Abdullahi Deni had decided to take Puntland out of Somalia. Its defence minister has now answered the meeting in Abu Dhabi with the language of treason. The parts of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s interview on the United Arab Emirates reported so far do not mention the opposition leaders in Abu Dhabi or his minister’s charge against them.
Alamein, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates
On Sunday 4 October President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud sat at New Alamein with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt, President Isaias Afwerki of Eritrea and the leader of Sudan’s Sovereignty Council, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. Their communique rejected any recognition of, or support for, what it called “Somaliland”, reaffirmed Somalia’s unity and sovereignty, declared that the governance of the Red Sea belongs to its coastal states alone, and called for sustained funding for the African Union mission in Somalia. Ethiopia, which accuses Egypt, Eritrea and Sudan of backing the armed alliance fighting its army in the north, answered the communique on Monday. Its foreign ministry said Ethiopia would not compromise in defending its sovereignty and territory, and that questions of the Nile and the Red Sea must be settled on geographic and historical facts, with no party acting alone.
General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan’s government broke with the United Arab Emirates over the Rapid Support Forces in May 2025, and his war with them began in April 2023. Mogadishu justified its own break with Abu Dhabi in January by accusing the Emirates of dealing with Somalia through several channels, Somaliland among them, and the Alamein text now commits Cairo, Asmara and Khartoum to rejecting any support for Somaliland. President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud signed that text on Sunday, and on Monday his interview describing the Emirates as a very important country was published in Mogadishu.
On Monday 5 October the director general of Somaliland’s foreign ministry, Mohamed Abdirahman Hassan, said Mogadishu was considering an operation against Somaliland with Turkish support, and a senior adviser to Somaliland’s president said Hargeisa wanted Israel’s backing against Turkiye. The claim was not independently verified, and the federal government has announced no military plan against Somaliland. Mogadishu’s agreements with the United Arab Emirates remain suspended, and by the president’s own account both embassies stay open.
