Saturday 18 May 2024,{HMC} It’s been wonderful to be in Puntland for my fifth and final farewell visit to say goodbye to President Deni and his team, and I’m particularly grateful to President Deni for taking time out of his retreat.
He’s having his first retreat with his new cabinet today as they talk about development plans and how they’re going to take them forward. That was one of the topics we talked about, and [also] the role the UN will play in supporting the various pillars of their development plan – I’m glad to say he has got some high ambition there.
Secondly, of course, we talked about the process around the Constitution and discussed the communique we’ve seen from the NCC [National Consultative Council]. I urged President Deni again to be willing to engage and discuss with other Federal Member States and the Federal Government, and put on the table his concerns. He said the door remains open. As we all know, he does have some concerns around the process and around the substance, but I felt confident that there may be a way forward and I, of course, offered the UN’s ‘good offices’ role to support him on that.
And then, finally, we discussed briefly security across the country and the importance of the country coming together in the fight against Al-Shabab and, indeed, Islamic State, and he committed to provide support on that.
So, it was a very fruitful discussion, a very good discussion, and we have agreed to remain in touch as I move onto to my next steps. Thank you to President Deni, his Cabinet, the wonderful women of Puntland, and the minister of Women’s Affairs in the cabinet too – I had a very interesting discussion with [her].
