With much appreciation and gratitude we, the Somaliland Society in Europe (SSE), are delighted that Tower-Hamlets Council voted on 19^th November 2015 to pass a motion that officially pledged its support for Somaliland as an independent state. Tower-Hamlets has become the third UK council to do so, following in the footsteps of Sheffield and Cardiff councils.

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to the council, its leaders and councillor Amina Ali and all Somaliland community in Tower Hamlets for their hard work for Tower-Hamlets councillors to pass this motion. The Tower Hamlets recognition came just after months of excellent campaign by both Somalilanders in the brought and members of the councillors.

The member organisations of SSE has welcomed this outcome as a significant symbolic ice-breaking motion that will certainly send a clear message to the UK government to shift its policy towards the Horn of African nations of Somaliland and Somalia which are at logger heads over the question of two-nation state solution to the political conundrum in the region. We expect other city councils and government will follow suit.

SSE appeals to the rest of the government of the United Kingdom and the International Community to heed the call of Tower Hamlets council and re-consider its stance on the Republic of Somaliland. The re-recognition of Somaliland does not violate international law pertaining to state borders. Somaliland has become an independent nation in 1960. 

Yours sincerely,
The executive committee