After months of tension… Türkiye succeed meditating an agreement between Somalia and Ethiopia

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that Somalia and Ethiopia have reached a historic agreement that ends tensions between them, at the conclusion of negotiations mediated by Türkiye.

During a joint press conference in Ankara with Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mahmoud and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, Erdogan expressed his hope that this agreement would be the first step towards a new beginning based on peace and cooperation between the two countries.

Erdogan, whose country has been mediating for months in the crisis between the two neighboring countries in the Horn of Africa, explained that the agreement reached after 8 hours of negotiations will guarantee Ethiopia’s access to the sea.

For his part, the Somali president said that the agreement put an end to the dispute, stressing that his country is ready to work with the Ethiopian authorities and the Ethiopian people.

In turn, the Ethiopian Prime Minister said that Addis Ababa and Mogadishu had reached a settlement to the misunderstanding, adding that his country wants safe and reliable access to the sea, and that this would benefit its neighbor equally.

The agreement reached stipulates abandoning differences of opinion and controversial issues, and moving forward decisively in cooperation towards common prosperity, and it also stipulates that the two countries will begin technical talks that will take a maximum of 4 months before the end of next February with the aim of resolving the dispute between them through dialogue, and if necessary with the support of Türkiye.

In January 2024, Ethiopia concluded an agreement with the Somaliland region, which unilaterally declared its secession from Somalia in 1991, to lease 20 kilometers of its coast for 50 years to Ethiopia, which wants to establish a naval base and a commercial port, in exchange for Addis Ababa’s official recognition of the region’s government.

As a result of this agreement, relations between Ethiopia and Somalia became tense, as the latter considered the agreement a violation of its sovereignty and called for its withdrawal.