Pakistan and 13 other countries on Sunday jointly condemned Somaliland's May 19 announcement that it would open a purported embassy in occupied Jerusalem, calling the decision an "illegal and unacceptable step."
The joint statement — issued by the foreign ministries of Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkiye, Indonesia, Djibouti, Somalia, Palestine, Oman, Sudan, and Yemen — said: "This constitutes a flagrant violation of international law and relevant international resolutions, and represents a direct infringement on the legal and historical status of occupied Jerusalem." The statement added that the governments involved rejected "unilateral measures aimed at conferring legitimacy on arrangements that contravene international law and relevant United Nations resolutions," and reiterated that East Jerusalem has been part of the occupied Palestinian territory since 1967.
The breadth of the complaint matters because it ties the Jerusalem announcement to wider regional and legal consensus. The fourteen foreign ministries explicitly linked their rebuke to the status of East Jerusalem under international law and to United Nations resolutions, and they used the same statement to reaffirm "full support for the unity, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Somalia."
Somaliland, a breakaway region that declared independence from Somalia in 1991 but remains internationally recognised as part of Somalia by the United Nations, the African Union and most governments worldwide, has pushed a diplomatic line that now collides with those positions. Israel became the first country to formally recognise the self-declared Republic of Somaliland as an independent and sovereign state in December 2025, and on Tuesday Somaliland's ambassador to Israel, Mohamed Hagi, said: "Israel will also establish its embassy in Hargeisa, reflecting growing friendship, mutual respect, and strategic cooperation between our two peoples." On May 19 Somaliland announced it would set up an embassy in Jerusalem soon.
Within Somaliland, supporters framed the step as a vindication of the territory's separate status. Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi called the decision a "historic moment" and praised the move as an act of "political courage." Those statements underline why Hargeisa sees the Israel recognition and a Jerusalem presence as both symbolic and practical gains.
The tension is sharp: a self-declared republic that most of the world treats as a region of Somalia is seeking to establish diplomatic infrastructure in a city whose status is the subject of long-standing international norms and resolutions. Somalia has already rejected Israel's recognition of Somaliland, calling it a deliberate attack on its sovereignty, and the recent joint statement by Pakistan and 13 other foreign ministries ties the Jerusalem embassy announcement to that broader sovereignty dispute as well as to Palestinian claims.
That contradiction — between Somaliland's drive to normalise relations with Israel and the widespread international insistence that East Jerusalem is occupied Palestinian territory — is the clearest fault line in this dispute. The guardians of the prevailing international consensus have framed the embassy plan as more than a bilateral diplomatic choice: in their view it is an attempt to alter legal and historical claims through unilateral acts.
The immediate question sharpened by these events is how durable Israel's December 2025 recognition will prove when set against regional and international opposition. If the plan for a Somaliland mission in Jerusalem moves forward, it will test whether Israel's recognition and the promise of an Israeli embassy in Hargeisa change the calculus for other governments — or whether the widespread rebuke from the 14 foreign ministries will harden Somaliland's diplomatic isolation and reaffirm Somalia's internationally backed territorial claims.
