Djibouti offers port-sharing deal with Ethiopia
The $60-million facility, which opened in 2017, gives access to the Gulf of Aden and then to the Red Sea, one of the world’s major maritime trading routes.
Daily TribuneThe $60-million facility, which opened in 2017, gives access to the Gulf of Aden and then to the Red Sea, one of the world’s major maritime trading routes.
DJIBOUTI Foreign Minister Mahamoud Ali Youssouf said his government was offering to operate its port of Tadjoura jointly with Ethiopia.
port of Tadjoura/FB
NAIROBI, Kenya (AFP) -- Djibouti said it has offered a port-sharing deal with Addis Ababa, a move aimed at easing tensions between Horn of Africa rivals Ethiopia and Somalia.
Relations between Mogadishu and Addis Ababa have soured dramatically since Ethiopia struck a controversial maritime deal in January with the breakaway Somali region of Somaliland.
The memorandum of understanding (MoU) gives Ethiopia -- one of the world’s biggest landlocked countries -- access to the sea but Somalia has condemned it as an assault on its sovereignty.
Djibouti Foreign Minister Mahamoud Ali Youssouf said his government was offering to operate its port of Tadjoura jointly with Ethiopia, but denied it was planning to hand it over completely.
“What we have proposed to the Ethiopians is not to sell the port of Tadjoura. There has never been any question of ceding or selling the port,” he told reporters on Monday.
“It is a national heritage that will never be sold off to anyone,” he said, adding that instead: “We manage (the port) together.”
The $60-million facility, which opened in 2017, gives access to the Gulf of Aden and then to the Red Sea, one of the world’s major maritime trading routes.
Youssouf said it was important for Djibouti, whose economy relies on the international trade and shipping industries, to keep Ethiopia’s business.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s spokesperson Billene Seyoum did not immediately respond to Agence France-Presse’s request for comment.
Under the 1 January deal with Addis Ababa, Somaliland agreed to lease 20 kilometers of its coast for 50 years to Ethiopia, which wants to set up a naval base and a commercial port.
