Huenyan officials have confirmed observations by domestic and foreign media that the Xiomeran Empire appears to have initiated a withdrawal from part of the territory it was occupying within Huenyan borders.
Xiomera occupied the Tihanang region of western Huenya in September 2023, declaring it a Xiomeran province after ethnic Xiomeran terrorists affiliated with the Golden Blade insurgency “voted” to separate from Huenya. However, Xiomeran military forces have reportedly completed a staged withdrawal over the past several days via airlift. Xiomeran official maps have quietly removed Tihanang as a listed province. Xiomera has reportedly airlifted thousands of civilians and government officials out of the region as well.
Huenyan military forces reported relatively little resistance as they reoccupied the Tihanang area, rolling past abandoned border checkpoints and reclaiming control over military, law enforcement and government sites abandoned by the Xiomerans. Some scattered civilian resistance from ethnic Xiomeran separatists was reported, but the return to Huenyan control “was practically bloodless and smooth”, President Xiadani told the media.
Experts believe that Xiomera may be shedding Tihanang in order to move the military and civilian population there to their newly claimed colony in Taragai to boost their presence there. “Tihanang was always a difficult place for Xiomera to hold,” DTNS analyst Chris Smithson said. “They were constantly dealing with border clashes and infiltration from Huenya’s intelligence and military forces there. They also had constant raids taking place from Necatli tribal forces that kept attacking them in Tihanang just because the Xiomerans were there,” Smithson said. He also cited Tihanang’s location as a problem for Xiomera. “It was surrounded by Huenya, on the other side of the subcontinent, with no easy or direct routes to resupply the place due to Huenyan resistance. Xiomera’s leaders have clearly decided that, despite their assertions that they will ‘protect all Xiomerans anywhere in the world’, that the separatists in Tihanang were too marginal to Imperial ambitions to bother with anymore. Taragai has apparently given Xiomera bigger fish to fry,” Smithson said.
While Xiomera, by withdrawing from Tihanang, has returned at least some of the land it occupied in defiance of the Jinyu Agreement, Smithson warned that Xiomera is unlikely to return the rest of it to Huenya. “The land that Xiomera occupied in eastern Huenya in April 2023, which it now calls its province of Xonacatlán, has far greater strategic and emotional resonance for Xiomerans. After losing control of the Intra-Xiomera Canal and the Canal Zone, it became very important for Xiomera to retain control over the Gulf of Epeloc. They see the Gulf as a “Xiomeran lake”. They also value control of both sides of the Gulf so they can still exert some control over shipping through the Canal. Xiomera will only give up Xonacatlán by force, if at all,” Smithson said.
On the subjects of Taragai and Xonacatlán, President Xiadani made it clear that the Xiomeran withdrawal from Tihanang “changes nothing whatsoever as far as the Huenyan Federation is concerned.”
“The Xiomeran Empire must withdraw from Xonacatlán, because they stole it in defiance of a treaty. The Xiomeran Empire must withdraw from Taragai, because they stole it in defiance of international law. We will reassert our authority in Tihanang, because it was always ours to begin with. But we will still pursue all pathways and methods necessary to compel the thieves in Tlālacuetztla to give up all they have stolen, whether on our subcontinent or anywhere else,” the President said.
