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The Maltese Herald

Arab states gang up against Ethiopia at the Arab League summit

—

by

Mark Camilleri
in

The Arab League has held a summit in Cairo where it issued a statement against Ethiopia’s support to Somaliland, a breakaway region from Somalia.

This is not the first time that the Arab League has issued condemnations against Ethiopia for its support of Somaliland, condemnations, which Ethiopia rebuts by asserting that the Arab League should not interfere into non-Arabic African affairs.

Egypt is currently up in arms against Ethiopia for its Grand Renaissance Dam. Clashes between the Ethiopian National Defence Force and Fano separatist militias have escalated in north Ethiopia and at the border with Sudan, ever since Egypt has announced the landing of a contingent of Egyptian officers in Somalia.

On a separate note, The Syrian Minister of Foreign Affairs walked out of the summit when the Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs took the mike, indicating quite clearly that there is no normalisation of ties between Syria and Turkey.

Comments

  1. Banquo avatar
    Banquo

    The reason why Ethiopia is recognising Somaliland is because the latter can offer access to the sea to the former. Ethiopia used to have sea ports (vital for trade) but became landlocked in 1991 when the country was split in two, with Eritrea getting the part that touches the water and new Ethiopia getting sand all around. This made Ethiopia claustrophobic.

    Somaliland happens to be a strip of land which abuts the sea on one side and Ethiopia on another. It officially forms part of Somalia but has been de facto independent without international recognition for decades. It is desperate for recognition from the international community as an independent state, and Ethiopia realised it could re-gain access to the sea by giving Somaliland what it craves.

    Ethiopian prime minister Abiy Ahmed is being opportunistic in recognising Somaliland, but Somaliland deserves the world’s sympathy. It is a reasonably democratic statelet which holds regular elections and has a growing economy. Forcing it to be part of the rest of poor and politically dysfunctional Somalia will just drag it down.

    However, most Arab and African states will refuse to recognise Somaliland, lest they give ideas to their own secessionists, from the Polisario Front in Morocco to the Biafras in Nigeria. Meanwhile, Syria, Iraq and Turkey want to keep Kurds from ever carving out a state from land which currently belongs to them, which helps put into focus why the Turkish president and Arab governments are so against Somaliland gaining any recognition.

    I hope this comment gives better context to this and your previous blog post.

    Reply
    1. camillerimark avatar
      camillerimark

      Your commentary is also welcome and brilliant. Exactly, Somaliland is democratic and they even have more stability than Somalia which is a total wreck run by opportunists and incompetent thieves.

      Reply

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