Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar will leave on Friday night for Saudi Arabia to attend an extraordinary meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Council of Foreign Ministers, scheduled for Saturday.

The meeting will discuss the implications of Israel’s recognition of Somaliland.

“The session will address the implications of Israel’s recognition of the so-called Somaliland region of the Federal Republic of Somalia,” read a statement issued by the Foreign Office (FO) on Friday.

It said the deputy prime minister will share Pakistan’s position on the issue of Somaliland.

On the sidelines, Dar will also hold bilateral meetings with his counterparts from OIC member states to discuss further cooperation on regional and international issues, added the FO.

Somaliland enjoys a strategic position on the Gulf of Aden and has its own currency, passport and army, but has struggled to win international recognition, amid fears of provoking Somalia and encouraging other separatist movements in Africa.

Israel became the first country to formally recognise Somaliland as an independent and sovereign state, with Somaliland’s president, Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi, saying his state will join the Abraham Accords.

On Tuesday, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar arrived in Somaliland for a high-profile visit, condemned by Somalia as an “unauthorised incursion”, after Israel recognised the breakaway region in the Horn of Africa.

Pakistan and a wide selection of Muslim countries issued a joint statement on Thursday condemning the visit by the Israeli diplomat to Somaliland.

The joint statement, issued by the FO, was issued on behalf of the foreign ministers of Pakistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Gambia, Indonesia, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Maldives, Nigeria, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Türkiye and Yemen, as well as the OIC.

Last month, Pakistan joined 20 other nations and the OIC in rejecting Israel’s recognition of the self-declared Republic of Somaliland, with a joint statement saying that Tel Aviv’s measure reflected its “full and blatant disregard for international law”.

The joint statement underscored their “unequivocal rejection” of Israel’s recognition of the ‘Somaliland’ region of Somalia.

The statement added that given the serious repercussions of such an unprecedented measure on peace and security in the Horn of Africa, the Red Sea, and its serious effects on international peace and security as a whole, the move also “reflects Israel’s full and blatant disregard for international law”.