MOGADISHU: Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud on Saturday accused Ethiopia of not recognizing his country as a sovereign state.
And he renewed his attack on the agreement between Addis Ababa and a breakaway Somali region.
“Ethiopia refuses to recognize Somalia as a sovereign neighbor,” the Somali president said in an address to the nation on Saturday.
“As long as it does not recognize Somalia’s sovereignty, we cannot talk about a sea or anything else. Ethiopia has violated international law.”
Earlier this year, Ethiopia signed a memorandum of understanding with Somaliland to lease 20 kilometers of coastline for 50 years.
This would give Ethiopia – one of the largest landlocked countries in the world – long-awaited access to the sea.
Somaliland, which unilaterally declared its independence from Somalia in 1991, has announced that Ethiopia will be the first country to officially recognise it in return, a move that Addis Ababa has yet to confirm.
The United States, the European Union, China, the African Union and the Arab League have called on Ethiopia to respect Somalia’s sovereignty.
Turkey is coordinating the indirect talks between Somalia and Ethiopia. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan spoke of “remarkable progress” after a second round of talks last Tuesday.
A third round is planned for September 17, also in Ankara.
With 120 million inhabitants, Ethiopia is the second most populous country in Africa. The country has been seeking access to the Red Sea since 1993, when Eritrea declared its independence after a decades-long war.
Somaliland is relatively stable compared to the rest of the Horn of Africa region, has its own institutions, prints its own money and issues its own passports.
But the country is poor and isolated because, despite its strategic location on the straits of the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, it enjoys no international recognition.