Djibouti offers port sharing deal to Ethiopia

Djibouti enjoys a strategic location at the southern entrance to the Red Sea – Copyright AFP/Archive JUSTIN TALLIS

Djibouti has announced that it has proposed a port-sharing agreement with Addis Ababa, a move aimed at easing tensions between Horn of Africa rivals Ethiopia and Somalia.

Relations between Mogadishu and Addis Ababa have deteriorated significantly since Ethiopia struck a controversial maritime deal with Somalia’s breakaway region of Somaliland in January.

The memorandum of understanding gives Ethiopia, one of the world’s largest landlocked countries, access to the sea, but Somalia has condemned it as an infringement of its sovereignty.

Djibouti’s Foreign Minister Mahamoud Ali Youssouf said his government offered to operate its Tadjoura port jointly with Ethiopia, but denied plans to hand it over completely.

“What we proposed to the Ethiopians is not to sell the port of Tadjourah. There was never any question of ceding or selling the port,” he told reporters on Monday.

“It is a national heritage that will never be sold to anyone,” he said, adding that on the contrary: “We manage (the port) together.”

The $60 million facility, which opened in 2017, provides access to the Gulf of Aden and then the Red Sea, one of the world’s major maritime trade routes.

Youssouf said it was important for Djibouti, whose economy relies on international trade and shipping industries, to retain Ethiopia’s operations.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s spokeswoman, Billene Seyoum, did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment.

Under the January 1 agreement with Addis Ababa, Somaliland agreed to lease 20 kilometers of its coastline for 50 years to Ethiopia, which wants to establish a naval base and a commercial port there.

In return, Somaliland said Ethiopia would grant it official recognition, although this was never 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 recognised 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 routed most of its maritime trade through Djibouti.

Ethiopia and Somalia have a history of stormy relations and territorial disputes, fighting two wars in the late 20th century.

Ethiopia’s prime minister warned on Sunday that his country would “humiliate” any nation that threatened its sovereignty, after Addis Ababa accused unnamed actors of seeking to “destabilize” the Horn of Africa.

The comments come after Cairo, which has long had strained relations with Addis Ababa over Ethiopia’s mega-dam on the Blue Nile, sent military equipment to Somalia last month.

Egypt has also offered to deploy troops to Somalia as part of a new African Union-led mission that will replace the current peacekeeping force, known as ATMIS, next year.

Ethiopia is currently a major contributor to ATMIS, which is helping Somali forces in the fight against the jihadist group Al-Shabaab.