Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki has met his counterparts Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, President of Egypt and Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, President of Somalia and discussed issues of the Red Sea and Bab-al Mandab Strait in Asmara today.
In a Tripartite Summit, the three countries have discussed “security and cooperation issues between the Littoral States of the Red Sea and the Bab-al Mandab Strait in the context of its utmost importance as a vital maritime route,” said Yemane G/Meskel, Information Minister of Eritrea in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
They have agreed to expand and flourish their cooperation as well as strengthen Somalia’s institutions aiming at enabling “the Somali National Federal Army to confront terrorism in all forms,” he adds.
The countries have also agreed “to establish a Joint Tripartite Committee of the Foreign Ministers of Eritrea, Egypt and Somalia for strategic cooperation in all fields.”
The three countries’ agreement came after the Chief of General Staff of the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF), FM Birhanu Jula told a YouTube-based media that “no one has encircled Ethiopia, except friends. Even, Eritrea has no a political and economic reason to encircle Ethiopia.”
Nevertheless, the Eritrean Civil Aviation Authority blocked money transfers from Ethiopian Airlines’ bank account in the Eritrean capital city, Asmara at the beginning of September 2024 which pushed the Airline to halt its flights to and from Eritrea since then.
Ethiopia-Eritrea phone lines have reportedly been cut off again yesterday for the first time since Ethiopia and Eritrea came to peace in July 2018 after 20 years of hostilities.
The diplomatic tension between Ethiopia and Somalia has intensified since PM Abiy Ahmed signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the president of the self-declared Republic of Somaliland, Muse Bihi Abdi on the 1st of January 2024 in Addis Ababa to access from and to the sea of Somaliland and to lease a 20km parts of its coastline for 50 years to build a naval base.
A former Turkish province, Egypt meets Ankara in Mogadishu, a few miles from the Ethiopian border
Somalia sees the MoU as an act of “aggression” and denounces the deal as a “violation of Somalia’s sovereignty” whereby Egypt and Eritrea have backed Somalia.
Egypt and Somalia signed a defense agreement in mid-August 2024 and Egypt has delivered significant military equipment including antiaircraft guns in a month to Somalia.
Eritrea, Somalia, and Egypt are members of the “Council of Arab and African Coastal States of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden” initiated by Saudi Arabia and comprise eight countries in the Red Sea Corridor, excluding Ethiopia. When Somalia and Egypt are full members of the Arab League, Eritrea is one of the seven observer states of the League.
A group of five states, the US, Qatar, Türkiye, UAE, and the UK have expressed their support for Somalia’s “sovereignty and territorial integrity” in their joint statement released last week.
