Somalia’s Defence Minister Mohamed Mursal Sheikh Abdirahman has announced that the country will take full charge of its SNA training and salaries and end an earlier military cooperation agreement with UAE.
“Surely it is the government of Somalia to take the rights and responsibility of Somali force” Abdirahaman told journalists in Mogadishu.
“We as the government of Somalia have made a plan to settle down their salary payments including those Somali forces that are in General Golden camp who were trained by the United Arab Emirates” Mursal said.
“Particularly this forces that were trained by UAE their salaries and numbers have been arranged and will be paid on 12/04/2018 which is the day they were founded” he added.
UAE and Somalia signed an agreement on military cooperation in November 2014 in which Abu Dhabi was to pay the salaries of SNA soldiers and trainers.
The two countries have been waged into a diplomatic row since the Farmaajo administration took over Villa Somalia and complicated by the 2017 Qatar Crisis in which Mogadishu chose a neutral stance.
Sunday’s seizure of a UAE aircraft loaded with $9.6M strained the relations farther. UAE condemned the seizure terming it illegal and a breach of diplomatic protocol. The money, UAE claimed, was meant to pay the salaries of SNA soldiers and trainers.