Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi said his country stands by Somalia opposing Ethiopia’s agreement with Somaliland to access seaport and establish a marine force base.
“Egypt will not allow anyone to threaten Somalia or affect its security,” el-Sisi said, during a presser with visiting Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud.
“Do not try Egypt, or try to threaten its brothers especially if they ask it to intervene,” he said.
Somaliland, a region strategically located by the
Gulf of Aden, broke away from Somalia in 1991 as the country collapsed into a
civil conflict. The region has maintained its own government despite a lack of
international recognition, Al Jazeera reported.
On January 1, in a memorandum, the Ethiopian government said it would consider possibilities of recognizing Somaliland’s independence in return for the port access. It would lease 20km (12 miles) of coastland around the port of Berbera, on the Gulf of Aden, for 50 years for military and commercial purposes.
Sheikh Mohamud, the president of Somalia, rejected the deal as a violation of international law and said: “We will not stand idly by and watch our sovereignty being compromised.”
He arrived in Egypt over the weekend to rally support for his government. Besides meeting President el-Sisi, he met with Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit and Al-Azhar Mosque’s Grand Imam, Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb.
“My message to Ethiopia is that … trying to seize a piece of land to control it is something no one will agree to,” el-Sisi said, noting cooperation on development was a better strategy.
On Sunday, Redwan Hussien, national security adviser to the prime minister of Ethiopia, rejected criticism from Egypt over the deal, saying it was merely a commercial agreement aimed at securing access to the sea and not an attempt to annex land.
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