Ethiopia today reiterated its position about gaining access to sea through Somaliland. Ethiopian Minister of Transport Alamu Sime spoked about that submitting his ministry’s nine-month performance report to the Ethiopian House of People’s Representatives today.
He said that Ethiopia will realize the dream of gaining access to sea through the MoU which it signed with Somaliland and it will be the start of a new era of regional inter connectedness.
In January this year, landlocked Ethiopia signed a Memorandum of Understanding with self declared country Somaliland. Somaliland is internationally recognized part of Somalia. The MoU, if implemented, would give Ethiopia access to sea through Somaliland. Ethiopia would establish a naval base in Somaliland and divert a major chunk of its cargo from Djibouti to Berbera port of Somaliland. In return Somaliland will get shares in a profitable Ethiopian entity and most importantly Ethiopia would recognize Somaliland as a country.
The MoU was never made public. The two sides in January announced to implement the MoU and sign a final agreement within a month. However due to stiff resistance from Somalia, the MoU could not translate into agreement.
But in statements given in recent months, Somaliland authorities said that draft agreement was being prepared by a British law firm and three places had been identified for the establishment of Ethiopian naval base in Somaliland. Ethiopia remained largely silent in recent weeks.
But today’s announcement by Minister Alamu Sime indicates that Ethiopia is fully committed to the MoU and it seems Ethiopia and Somaliland will soon make a move to turn the MoU into final agreement. It would be interesting to see how Somalia will respond to Ethiopia-Somaliland move to implement the MoU.
On Sunday, Hussain Sheikh, Somalia’s national security advisor announced all Ethiopian troops in Somalia will have to leave by the end of this year. The statement rang alarm bells in Washington. Immediately after that, in a phone call between US Secretary of State and Somalia’s President, US urged Somalia to resolve regional issues and jointly fighting against Al Shabaab, an armed group which wants to take over Somalia.
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