Middle East and Africa | A storm over a port
Ethiopia’s gambit for a port is unsettling a volatile regionAbiy Ahmed is doing a deal for a stretch of Somaliland’s coast
image: afpGeopolitics in the Horn of Africa are off already to a combustible start in the new year. On January 1st, Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopia’s prime minister, and Muse Bihi Abdi, his counterpart in the would-be state of Somaliland next door, delivered a surprise announcement. At a joint press conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, they revealed that landlocked Ethiopia is to lease a naval port and a 20km stretch of Red Sea coastline in the breakaway Somali province. In exchange, Somaliland is to receive shares in Ethiopian Airlines, Africa’s biggest carrier, and—much more significantly—possibly official diplomatic recognition by the Ethiopian government. This would make Ethiopia the first country to formally recognise the former British colony, which declared independence from the rest of Somalia more than three decades ago.The memorandum of understanding signed by the two leaders has thrown an already volatile part of the world into even greater uncertainty. Authorities in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, have reacted furiously to the news that Ethiopia is willing to break with the African Union’s long-standing policy against redrawing the continental map. “Abiy is messing things up in Somalia,” complains an advisor to Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, Somalia’s president. Just three days earlier Mr Mohamud and Mr Abdi had inked an agreement, mediated by the president of neighbouring Djibouti, to resume talks over Somaliland’s disputed constitutional status. That deal is now in tatters. Following an emergency cabinet meeting on January 2nd, Somalia declared the new agreement “null and void” and recalled its ambassador from Addis Ababa. Urging Abiy to reconsider, Mr Mohamud said the deal would serve only to fuel support for al-Shabab, the al-Qaeda-linked jihadist group which controls much of the countryside and first emerged partly in response to Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia in 2006.
Geopolitics in the Horn of Africa are off already to a combustible start in the new year. On January 1st, Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopia’s prime minister, and Muse Bihi Abdi, his counterpart in the would-be state of Somaliland next door, delivered a surprise announcement. At a joint press conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, they revealed that landlocked Ethiopia is to lease a naval port and a 20km stretch of Red Sea coastline in the breakaway Somali province. In exchange, Somaliland is to receive shares in Ethiopian Airlines, Africa’s biggest carrier, and—much more significantly—possibly official diplomatic recognition by the Ethiopian government. This would make Ethiopia the first country to formally recognise the former British colony, which declared independence from the rest of Somalia more than three decades ago.The memorandum of understanding signed by the two leaders has thrown an already volatile part of the world into even greater uncertainty. Authorities in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, have reacted furiously to the news that Ethiopia is willing to break with the African Union’s long-standing policy against redrawing the continental map. “Abiy is messing things up in Somalia,” complains an advisor to Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, Somalia’s president. Just three days earlier Mr Mohamud and Mr Abdi had inked an agreement, mediated by the president of neighbouring Djibouti, to resume talks over Somaliland’s disputed constitutional status. That deal is now in tatters. Following an emergency cabinet meeting on January 2nd, Somalia declared the new agreement “null and void” and recalled its ambassador from Addis Ababa. Urging Abiy to reconsider, Mr Mohamud said the deal would serve only to fuel support for al-Shabab, the al-Qaeda-linked jihadist group which controls much of the countryside and first emerged partly in response to Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia in 2006.