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Ethiopia and Somalia have agreed to negotiations aimed at resolving their bitter dispute over the breakaway Somaliland region and landlocked Ethiopia’s push for sea access, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has announced.
The Turkish presidency said Erdoğan held bilateral meetings with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, whose governments will start “technical negotiations in good faith” by February.
“By overcoming some of the resentments and misunderstandings together, we have taken the first step towards a new beginning based on peace and co-operation between Somalia and Ethiopia,” Erdoğan said.
Somaliland, which declared independence from Somalia in 1991 but has failed in its quest for global acceptance, signed an accord in January that, in principle, would swap access territory on the Gulf of Aden in return for formal recognition from Ethiopia, Africa’s second-most populous country.
But Somalia has vehemently opposed the deal, with Sheikh Mohamud declaring that “not an inch” of its territory would be signed away by anyone, spurring fears that the tension could incite yet another conflict in the Horn of Africa. Ethiopia only two years ago ended the world’s deadliest recent civil war — in which an estimated 600,000 people died — in its northernmost region of Tigray.
A statement from Erdoğan’s office said the two countries agreed “to forgo and leave behind differences and contentious issues” and acknowledged “potentially diverse benefits that could be derived from Ethiopia’s assured access to and from the sea, whilst respecting the territorial integrity” of Somalia.
The two sides would work to finalise commercial deals to allow Ethiopia secure access to the sea under Somalia’s authority, the statement added.
Ethiopia, which has troops in Somalia to fight al-Qaeda-linked insurgents, has sought access to the Red Sea ever since the 1993 split with Eritrea left it landlocked.
But Ethiopia’s deal with Somaliland has inflamed tensions with neighbouring Somalia, ally-turned-foe Eritrea and also Egypt, which has a dispute with Ethiopia over a dam on the Blue Nile. The leaders of those countries met in October in what was seen as an effort to create an axis to counter Addis Ababa.
Ethiopia and Somalia have fought each other in the past, including in the Ogaden war in the late 1970s.
Turkey has been expanding its influence in the region. It provided Abiy’s forces with Bayraktar TB2 drones to strike Tigray and also supports Mogadishu in its fight against al-Shabaab.
Turkey has positioned itself as a power player when many nations, including China, Russia and the United Arab Emirates have also sought access to the Horn of Africa, a poor, unstable but strategic region.
Turkey has continued to make its presence felt through a mix of commercial, security, diplomatic and religious efforts spearheaded by Ankara, often in tandem with Turkish companies.
Erdoğan talked up his country’s peacemaking clout. “As a symbol of our principled stance towards ensuring the sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of countries, our fundamental expectation is to ensure peace and stability in this distinguished corner of Africa,” he said.
