Business Insider Africa
Chinedu Okafor
Thursday September 5, 2024
Djibouti intends for Ethiopia to take up an offer on exclusive access to one of its ports, in an attempt to defuse regional tensions sparked by Ethiopia to reclaim direct access to the sea.
Djibouti Foreign Minister Mahamoud Ali Youssouf revealed during an interview on the sidelines of the ongoing China-Africa summit on Wednesday that the idea has been presented to Ethiopian officials, and it expects “a positive response soon.”
Last week, the minister declared that the Djibouti intended to provide landlocked Ethiopia “100% management” of a harbor in Tadjoura on Djibouti’s coast.
As reported by Bloomberg, Djibouti’s offer is part of its endeavor to deal with several challenges in the East African region.
In addition to the disagreement between Ethiopia and Somalia, Djibouti is attempting to defuse tensions in Sudan, where a civil war has been raging for more than a year, while it deals with the consequences of assaults on commercial ships in the Red Sea by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.
“We are in the middle of the storm and we are trying to do our level best to help countries like Sudan as well as trying to decrease the tension between Somalia and Ethiopia,” the Prime Minister said.
Tensions between Ethiopia and Somalia
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sparked a diplomatic storm in January when he unveiled intentions for a deal to acquire access to a port in Somaliland, a semi-autonomous area of Somalia, in exchange for a share in state-owned Ethiopia Airlines.
In response to Ethiopia’s deal with the Republic of Somaliland, Somalia said that it would stop at nothing to protect its territorial integrity.
Somalia pledged to protect its territory by any “legal means” necessary, given that Somalia considers Somaliland a part of its territory, while Somaliland considers itself a sovereign state.
The Somali government at the time called the deal irrelevant, stating that the MOU between Ethiopia and Somaliland is “null and void with no legal basis,
Somaliland broke away from Somalia more than 30 years ago. However, to this day it has not been recognized as an independent state by the African Union (AU) or the United Nations (UN).
The proposal led to further tensions in the East African region given the threat of Ethiopia annexing land from Eritrea.
After Eritrea split from Ethiopia in the early 1990s, Ethiopia has been left without adequate access to the sea. Since then, the majority of Ethiopia’s international trade has been conducted via the port in neighboring Djibouti.
