Somalia pulls out envoy from Iran

Abdirahman. A

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Somalia’s Federal government has recalled its ambassador to Iran after cutting diplomatic ties last week.
A Press statement released on Thursday following the weekly-cabinet meeting stated that the ambassador and other diplomats had arrived in Mogadishu from Tehran.
Somalia cut its diplomatic ties with Iran accusing the Islamic republic of interfering with its internal affairs. Officials accused the Iranian embassy in Mogadishu of spreading the Shia’sm ideology secretly.
The Federal cabinet confirmed that the Iranian ambassador to Somalia and diplomats left the country in time after ordering them to leave within 72 hours.
Defending the decision, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud denied the move to cut diplomatic ties was associated with the Saudi-Iran row.
Iran was one of the countries reopened their embassy in Somalia after two decades of civil war in 2012. It was also one of the countries that offered humanitarian assistance at the height of famine that struck Somalia and the rest of the Horn of Africa region in 2011 following a drought, the most severe in 60 years.
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