Somalia recalled its envoy to Ethiopia after its landlocked neighbour signed a memorandum of understanding with Somaliland, a breakaway enclave, giving it access to the Red Sea.
In exchange, Ethiopia will offer a stake in its flagship carrier, Ethiopian Airlines. It will also officially recognise Somaliland as a sovereign state, the region’s President Muse Bihi Abdi said. Ethiopia hasn’t explicitly said that it was recognising the breakaway region.
Somaliland unilaterally declared independence in 1991 from Somalia after the eruption of a civil war. Since then, it’s been pushing for international recognition that would allow it to source funding and aid.
Situated on the Gulf of Aden on the approach to a global shipping choke-point – the Bab El-Mandeb strait – that leads to the Red Sea and Suez Canal, Somaliland has oil deposits that have been explored by companies including Genel Energy Plc.
Somalia regards the region, which is bigger than the US state of Florida, as an integral part of its territory.
The deal is viewed “as an act of aggression against Somalia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and as a direct threat to its maritime resources, which we will defend,” Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre said in the capital, Mogadishu, after a cabinet meeting on Tuesday. Somalia “will continue to defend its territorial integrity regardless of any costs,” he said.
Edna Adan, an envoy for Somaliland-Somalia talks said in a letter that “Somaliland has the authority to sign agreements with any authority as it wishes, and doesn’t require notice or acceptance from anyone else”.
US military may get access to strategic Somaliland port, airfield
US military may get access to strategic Somaliland port, airfield
Somalia temporarily cut diplomatic ties with Kenya when its neighbour said it would open a consulate in Hargeisa in 2020.
The move by Ethiopia, Africa’s second-most populated nation, may escalate tensions in the volatile Horn of Africa region and potentially upset other powers on the continent.
The agreement will give Ethiopia the right to facilities on the Gulf of Aden that can be used as a military base and for commercial purposes for 50 years. It will be able to access them via a corridor leased from Somaliland, according to Bihi.
That means Ethiopia will have access to a very strategic corner of the world, which is the Bab el-Mandeb, said Rashid Abdi, chief analyst Horn of Africa & Middle East at Sahan Research.
“This is where almost 12 per cent of global economic trade is conducted and this area is also the place where there is the largest concentration of navies,” Abdi said. It could “upset the existing military balance. Countries in the region – in principal, Egypt – will not be looking at it kindly,” he said.
An al-Qaeda-linked militant group that’s been fighting Somalia’s central government for 17 years and orchestrated terror attacks in Kenya and Uganda said it would act if Ethiopia gets access.
“There should be no room for the Ethiopians to acquire even an inch of land or ocean, as this would result in the Ethiopians taking control of more ocean territory,” al-Shabab’s spokesman Ali Mohamud Rage said on Radio Andalus. “In the event that you attempt to do so, you will suffer bitter consequences.”