September 19, 2024
Turkey will hold separate talks with Horn of Africa rivals Somalia and Ethiopia in an effort to ease tensions between them before a new round of Ankara-hosted talks, Agence France-Presse reported, citing the foreign minister on Thursday.
Relations between Mogadishu and Addis Ababa have soured dramatically since Ethiopia struck a controversial maritime deal in January with the breakaway Somali region of Somaliland.
The memorandum of understanding (MoU) gives Ethiopia — one of the world’s biggest landlocked countries — access to the sea, but Somalia has condemned it as an assault on its sovereignty.
Turkey, which has been carrying out shuttle diplomacy between the Ethiopian and Somali foreign ministers since summer, mediated two rounds of talks in July and August.
The third round, which was supposed to take place on Tuesday, was cancelled as Turkey’s foreign minister Hakan Fidan said Ankara would rather meet with them separately before another round of talks.
“Because there are some lessons we learned from the previous two rounds of talks,” Fidan told the state-run Anadolu news agency.
Fidan said he himself would directly talk to the two parties in a bid to “bring their positions closer” and help them reach a deal.
Under the January 1 deal with Addis Ababa, Somaliland agreed to lease 20 kilometers (12 miles) of its coast for 50 years to Ethiopia, which wants to set up a naval base and a commercial port.
In return Somaliland has said Ethiopia would give it formal recognition, although this has never been confirmed by Addis Ababa.
Somaliland, a former British protectorate of 4.5 million people, unilaterally declared independence in 1991 but the move has never been recognized by the international community.
Addis Ababa had access to a port in Eritrea until the two countries went to war between 1998 and 2000. Since then, Ethiopia has sent most of its sea trade through Djibouti.
Fidan said he was hopeful about a deal between the two rivals.
“I believe we have brought the parties closer to a certain degree. Hopefully, we will continue this. … I am hopeful,” he said.