{"id":394467,"date":"2026-04-16T02:13:23","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T02:13:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/394467\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T02:13:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T02:13:23","slug":"israel-appoints-first-ambassador-to-somaliland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/394467\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel appoints first ambassador to Somaliland"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-v-fb708951=\"\" data-v-71e662ef-s=\"\">The Foreign Ministry\u2019s Appointments Committee for Appointing Representatives Abrod, chaired by Foreign Minister Gideon Sa\u2019ar, on Wednesday approved two new diplomatic appointments.<\/p>\n<p data-v-fb708951=\"\" data-v-71e662ef-s=\"\">Yahel Vilan has been appointed Israel\u2019s ambassador to Singapore and East Timor. He previously served as ambassador to Kenya and Serbia.<\/p>\n<p data-v-fb708951=\"\" data-v-71e662ef-s=\"\">Michael Lotem, currently serving as a non-resident economic ambassador to Africa, has been appointed Israel\u2019s first ambassador to Somaliland. <\/p>\n<p data-v-fb708951=\"\" data-v-71e662ef-s=\"\">He previously served as Israel\u2019s ambassador to Kenya, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. In the initial stage, Lotem will serve as a non-resident ambassador to Somaliland.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" album=\"true\" data-v-fb708951=\"\" data-v-71e662ef-s=\"\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.israelnationalnews.com\/news\/419955\" target=\"_blank\" data-v-fb708951=\"\" data-v-71e662ef-s=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Israel recognized Somaliland<\/a> in December 2025, becoming the first and, to date, the only country to officially recognize the self-declared republic, which Somalia considers part of its territory.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" album=\"true\" data-v-fb708951=\"\" data-v-71e662ef-s=\"\">Less than two weeks later, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa\u2019ar <a class=\"\" album=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/www.israelnationalnews.com\/news\/420479\" target=\"_blank\" data-v-fb708951=\"\" data-v-71e662ef-s=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">visited Somaliland<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" album=\"true\" data-v-fb708951=\"\" data-v-71e662ef-s=\"\">In January, Israeli President Isaac Herzog <a class=\"\" album=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/www.israelnationalnews.com\/news\/421348\" target=\"_blank\" data-v-fb708951=\"\" data-v-71e662ef-s=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">met on the sidelines<\/a> of the World Economic Forum in Davos with the President of Somaliland, Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" album=\"true\" data-v-fb708951=\"\" data-v-71e662ef-s=\"\">In a post on social media following the meeting, Herzog wrote, &#8216;I welcome the establishment of diplomatic relations between our two nations and look forward to deepening our bilateral cooperation for the benefit of both our peoples.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" album=\"true\" data-v-fb708951=\"\" data-v-71e662ef-s=\"\">Abdirahman, in a post of his own, wrote, &#8220;Our discussions focused on strengthening and advancing bilateral relations between the Republic of Somaliland and the State of Israel.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Foreign Ministry\u2019s Appointments Committee for Appointing Representatives Abrod, chaired by Foreign Minister Gideon Sa\u2019ar, on Wednesday approved&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":394468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[94166,42,43,23046,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-394467","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-gideon-sa","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-somaliland","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}