Djibouti offers Ethiopia port-sharing deal to ease regional tensions

Djibouti said it has offered 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 dramatically since Ethiopia reached a controversial maritime agreement with Somalia's breakaway Somali 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 attack on its sovereignty. 

Djibouti's Foreign Minister Mahamoud Ali Youssouf said his government was offering to operate its port of Tadjoura jointly with Ethiopia, but denied it was planning to hand it over completely. 

‘What we have proposed to the Ethiopians is not to sell the port of Tadjoura. There has never been any question of handing over 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, instead, ’we manage it (the port) together.’ 

The 60-million-dollar facility, which opened in 2017, gives access to the Gulf of Aden and then the Red Sea, one of the world's main maritime trade routes. 

Youssouf said it was important for Djibouti, whose economy depends on international trade and shipping industries, to retain Ethiopia's business. 

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

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

In return, Somaliland has said Ethiopia would grant it formal recognition, although this has never been 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 ships most of its maritime trade through Djibouti. 

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

Ethiopia's prime minister warned on Sunday that his country would ‘humiliate’ any nation that threatens its sovereignty, after Addis Ababa accused unnamed actors of trying to ‘destabilise’ the Horn of Africa. 

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

Egypt has also offered to deploy troops to Somalia under 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 assists Somali forces in the fight against the jihadist group Al-Shabaab.