Djibouti: We will not sell Tadjoura port to Ethiopia, we can only manage together

NAIROBI, Kenya - The government of Djibouti says it desires to minimize tensions within the Horn of Africa by offering to share the port of Tadjoura with Ethiopia, which is literally at loggerheads with Somalia.

Mogadishu and Addis Ababa are at loggerheads over the latter's determination to access the Red Sea through Somaliland, a semi-autonomous region of the former. The deal has caused rifts in the region.

The memorandum of understanding (MoU) gives Ethiopia -- one of the world's biggest landlocked countries -- access to the sea but Somalia has condemned it as an assault on its sovereignty, AFP reports.

Mohamoud Ali Youssouf, Djibouti's Foreign Affairs minister, says the country only offered to jointly run the port of Tadjourah with Ethiopia as a strategy to minimize tensions. The country will not offer it permanently, he added.

"What we have proposed to the Ethiopians is not to sell the port of Tadjoura. There has never been any question of ceding or selling the port," he told reporters on Monday.

"It is a national heritage that will never be sold off to anyone," he said, adding that instead: "We manage (the port) together."

The $60-million facility, which opened in 2017, gives access to the Gulf of Aden and then to the Red Sea, one of the world's major maritime trading routes. Ethiopia has been using the ports of Djibouti, Sudan, and Lamu for exports and imports but terms the situation as 'expensive'.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's spokesperson Billene Seyoum did not immediately respond to AFP's request for comment. Djibouti heavily relies on international partners who trade through its infrastructural investments.

The deal between Ethiopia and Somaliland if implemented, would see the former getting 20 kilometers of access to the Red Sea for construction of a military base and port in exchange for recognition of Somaliland as a sovereign state.

The Ethiopian prime minister had warned Sunday that his country would "humiliate" any nation that threatens its sovereignty after Addis Ababa accused unnamed actors of seeking to "destabilize" the Horn of Africa.

The comments came after Cairo -- which has long had fraught relations with Addis Ababa over Ethiopia's mega-dam on the Blue Nile -- last month sent military equipment to Somalia. Egypt is also set to deploy African Union Support and Stabilization Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM) troops come January 2025.

Somalia maintains it shall defend its territorial integrity and sovereignty which is under onslaught, noting that negotiations with Ethiopia cannot take place until Addis Ababa revokes the 'illegal' Memorandum of Understanding with Somaliland.

GAROWE ONLINE