Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, the President of Somalia, on Saturday lashed at Ethiopian government. Delivering a speech at the parliament, he leveled accusations against Ethiopia.
“Ethiopia has never engaged with us regarding the illegal MoU. On the contrary, they are teetering around asking others for mediation. Somalia is neither the instigator nor opposed to mediation. Ethiopia continues to evade responsibility for its diplomatic misstep,” the President tweeted.
In his speech at the parliament he said that Ethiopia never engaged Somalia in a brotherly fashion to discuss the issues and that Ethiopia was pushing ahead with the MoU with Somaliland. He said Ethiopia is the one that has been pushing for de escalation talks with Somalia. “The talks in Ankara were held at the request of Ethiopia and no direct talks were held,” he said.
Earlier this week, Ethiopian PM mocked the President of Somalia. PM Abiy Ahmed said that instead of going from country to country, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud should have come to Addis Ababa to solve the issue of MoU and it would have been solved in an hour. He said that the money being spent on foreign travels by the President of Somalia should be spent on building schools in Mogadishu.
Tensions rose between Ethiopia and Somalia in January this year when Ethiopia signed a controversial MoU with Somaliland to gain access to sea through Somaliland in return for recognizing Somaliland as a country. Somaliland is internationally recognized part of Somalia, struggling to gain international recognition for around 3 decades. Somalia calls this MoU a violation of its territorial integrity and sovereignty.
The war of words between Ethiopia and Somalia could jeopardize the second round of de escalation talks between them due to be held on September 2 in Ankara. The first round ended with no agreement this week.
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