Ethiopia has become a source of instability in the region, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said on Wednesday, according to a statement from the Egyptian Foreign Ministry.
During an Arab League ministerial meeting in Cairo, Shoukry warned of the consequences of Ethiopia’s “unilateral policies” and called for respect for Somalia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, after the breakaway region of Somaliland agreed to grant Ethiopia access to the Red Sea in exchange for its recognition as an independent nation.
Ethiopia said yesterday that it will not be able to attend the extraordinary summit convened on January 18 in Uganda by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) – a bloc of eight East African countries – to address diplomatic tensions between Addis Ababa and Somalia.
“Unfortunately, (…) it is very difficult for us to attend the proposed meeting due to a prior commitment that overlaps with the scheduled meeting and the short time with which the summit was convened,” said the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a letter dated last Saturday but made public on Tuesday. “However, Ethiopia is willing to discuss alternative dates,” he added.
The meeting convened by Djibouti, which holds the rotating presidency of IGAD, coincides with the 19th Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which is being held in Uganda from January 15 to 20.
At the meeting, IGAD wants to address the crisis that arose from the signing on January 1 of a memorandum of understanding between the Ethiopian authorities and the self-proclaimed independent Somali region of Somaliland (north) to guarantee Ethiopia’s access to the Red Sea.
The pact, considered illegal by Somalia and annulled with a law by its president, Hassan Sheik Mohamud, would give landlocked Ethiopia “the opportunity to obtain a permanent naval base (…) and commercial maritime service in the Gulf of Aden through a leasing agreement” for an extension of 20 kilometers of coastline for a period of fifty years, as detailed by the Ethiopian and Somaliland governments.
In exchange, according to the president of Somaliland, Muse Bihi Abdi, Ethiopia would internationally recognize his region as an independent country, although Addis Ababa has clarified that it has yet to evaluate that request.
At the January 18 summit, IGAD also wants to address the situation in Sudan, a country mired in a war between the Army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (FAR) since April 15, 2023.
The bloc has promoted a peace initiative to end the conflict, but, last Saturday, the Sudanese military leader, Abdel Fattah al Burhan, rejected its intervention by emphasizing that “the events that occurred in Sudan are an internal matter.”
Likewise, this Tuesday, the Sudanese interim Foreign Minister, Ali al Sadiq, informed Djibouti of the decision to “stop collaborating and freeze the deal” with the IGAD, whom he accuses of having invited the FAR to the summit in Uganda. “without consulting Sudan.”
Thus, despite the mediation efforts of IGAD and other international actors, tensions between both rivals continue to escalate, in a war that has already left around 12,000 dead and seven million refugees and displaced people.
