Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /customers/a/c/1/hadalsame.com/httpd.www/index.php:52) in /customers/a/c/1/hadalsame.com/httpd.www/wp-includes/rest-api/class-wp-rest-server.php on line 1794 Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /customers/a/c/1/hadalsame.com/httpd.www/index.php:52) in /customers/a/c/1/hadalsame.com/httpd.www/wp-includes/rest-api/class-wp-rest-server.php on line 1794 Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /customers/a/c/1/hadalsame.com/httpd.www/index.php:52) in /customers/a/c/1/hadalsame.com/httpd.www/wp-includes/rest-api/class-wp-rest-server.php on line 1794 Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /customers/a/c/1/hadalsame.com/httpd.www/index.php:52) in /customers/a/c/1/hadalsame.com/httpd.www/wp-includes/rest-api/class-wp-rest-server.php on line 1794 Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /customers/a/c/1/hadalsame.com/httpd.www/index.php:52) in /customers/a/c/1/hadalsame.com/httpd.www/wp-includes/rest-api/class-wp-rest-server.php on line 1794 Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /customers/a/c/1/hadalsame.com/httpd.www/index.php:52) in /customers/a/c/1/hadalsame.com/httpd.www/wp-includes/rest-api/class-wp-rest-server.php on line 1794 Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /customers/a/c/1/hadalsame.com/httpd.www/index.php:52) in /customers/a/c/1/hadalsame.com/httpd.www/wp-includes/rest-api/class-wp-rest-server.php on line 1794 Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /customers/a/c/1/hadalsame.com/httpd.www/index.php:52) in /customers/a/c/1/hadalsame.com/httpd.www/wp-includes/rest-api/class-wp-rest-server.php on line 1794 {"id":46278,"date":"2020-06-06T15:36:29","date_gmt":"2020-06-06T14:36:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hadalsame.com\/?p=46278"},"modified":"2020-06-06T15:36:29","modified_gmt":"2020-06-06T14:36:29","slug":"abiy-ahmed-helps-somaliland-put-more-facts-on-the-ground","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hadalsame.com\/2020\/06\/06\/abiy-ahmed-helps-somaliland-put-more-facts-on-the-ground\/","title":{"rendered":"Abiy Ahmed helps Somaliland put more facts on the ground"},"content":{"rendered":"
(Hadalsame) 06 June 2020<\/strong><\/span> – On 1 June, Somaliland\u2019s President Muse Bihi Abdi officially inaugurated the first 12 km of Berbera Corridor, a trade and transport route that connects landlocked Ethiopia to Somaliland\u2019s Port of Berbera on the Gulf of Aden.<\/div>\n
\n

The Addis Ababa-Berbera highway is being funded by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development. Together with the US$442 million expansion of the Port of Berbera by another Emirati company, Dubai\u2019s DP World, the highway will turn Berbera into a major regional trading hub.<\/h4>\n

On one level, Somaliland is merely investing in what is likely to be a lucrative commercial venture, attracting more exports and imports from its much bigger and richer neighbor. But the Berbera highway clearly also has a more strategic purpose \u2013 to put an important political fact on the ground.<\/h4>\n

That is, to make Berbera an integral part of Ethiopia\u2019s economic network \u2013 and therefore also Somaliland. To the degree that Berbera becomes indispensable for Ethiopia, to that degree is Somaliland recognized \u2013 though only implicitly of course \u2013 as an independent state.<\/h4>\n
The Berbera project is important to Ethiopia\u2019s strategic imperative of access to the sea<\/strong><\/div>\n

Achieving such recognition has been Somaliland\u2019s eternal quest \u2013 so far with no apparent success. Neither Ethiopia nor any other country explicitly recognises it as a sovereign nation. All officially still consider it to be a wayward province of Somalia. And there are no signs on the immediate horizon that any country is about to take the plunge and be the first to recognise the independent state of Somaliland.<\/h4>\n

Yet because of its implicit recognition of Somaliland, the Berbera Port-highway project has annoyed Somalia. Two years ago when Somaliland and DP World ceded 19% of the Berbera Port project to Ethiopia, Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed Farmaajo, without mentioning names, warned foreign countries and companies not to \u2018cross the line and put to question the sovereignty of Somalia.\u2019<\/h4>\n

Ethiopian President Abiy Ahmed Ali\u2019s government duly pledged respect for Somalia\u2019s sovereignty a few months later. Yet Abiy, who ascended to Ethiopia\u2019s prime ministership in April 2018, has shown no signs of abandoning the Berbera project. The corridor is important to Ethiopia\u2019s strategic imperative of access to the sea. This is especially because cooling relations with Djibouti since Abiy\u2019s rapprochement with Eritrea have placed something of a question mark over Ethiopia\u2019s main maritime outlet through that country.<\/h4>\n

However, Abiy, the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize winner, is also exercising diplomatic skills. In February this year, he hosted a meeting between Farmaajo and Bihi in Addis Ababa to try to help them patch up their quarrel.<\/h4>\n
<\/div>\n
The Berbera highway also has a strategic purpose \u2013 to put an important political fact on the ground<\/strong><\/div>\n

The encounter seems to have borne some fruit as the United Nations Secretary-General\u2019s Special Representative for Somalia, James Swan, told the Security Council earlier this month that \u2018in regard to Somalia-\u201cSomaliland\u201d relations, we are encouraged that dialogue is ongoing at senior levels and that both sides have indicated a willingness to maintain communication and pursue further discussions.\u2019<\/h4>\n

Abiy\u2019s intervention as a mediator is intriguing. One might think it would be Somalia that would consider Ethiopia a biased referee since Addis Ababa has a material interest in the offending Berbera project. Also, Ethiopia is one of only three countries \u2013 along with Djibouti and Turkey \u2013 to have opened consulates in Hargeisa, Somaliland\u2019s main city.<\/h4>\n

Conversely, though, Abiy would probably not want to see a peaceful Somaliland weakened by Mogadishu. Ethiopia shares a border with Somaliland that is almost as long as that with Somalia, and a strong Somaliland provides a buffer for Ethiopia against al-Shabaab. So Abiy is walking a delicate tightrope on this issue, it seems.<\/h4>\n

There is also a wider dimension to the Somali-Somaliland standoff. Middle East powers are pursuing proxy rivalries in the Horn, with the UAE backing Somaliland in part to counter Turkey and Qatar\u2019s courtship of Somalia.<\/h4>\n

BY: INSTITUTE FOR SECURITY STUDIES<\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n

Hadalsame Media<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Hadalsame) 06 June 2020 – On 1 June, Somaliland\u2019s President Muse Bihi Abdi officially inaugurated the first 12 km of Berbera Corridor, a trade and transport route that connects landlocked Ethiopia to Somaliland\u2019s Port of Berbera on the Gulf of Aden. The Addis Ababa-Berbera highway is being funded by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46279,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hadalsame.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/b-42.jpg?fit=953%2C633&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9Xl2P-c2q","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hadalsame.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46278"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hadalsame.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hadalsame.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hadalsame.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hadalsame.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46278"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.hadalsame.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46280,"href":"https:\/\/www.hadalsame.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46278\/revisions\/46280"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hadalsame.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hadalsame.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hadalsame.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hadalsame.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}