The European Union has expressed its “full support” to the unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Somalia, amid rising tensions over a port deal between Ethiopia and the breakaway region of Somaliland.<\/p>\n
The EU’s foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, said he had a phone conversation with Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud on Thursday, and reaffirmed the bloc’s commitment to the Horn of Africa nation.<\/p>\n
“I reaffirmed the full support of the EU to the unity, the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of #Somalia. The Horn of Africa doesn\u2019t need more tensions,” Borrell wrote on X.<\/p>\n
His statement came after Somalia rejected a pact that Somaliland signed with Ethiopia on Monday, allowing it to use the port on the Red Sea in exchange for recognition as an independent state.<\/p>\n
Somalia called the agreement a “clear violation” of its sovereignty and appealed to the international community to stand by its side.<\/p>\n
Ethiopia, a landlocked country with a population of over 100 million, has been seeking more access to sea ports for its trade and development.<\/p>\n
The agreement has also drawn criticism from other countries in the region, such as Egypt and Turkey, who see it as a threat to their interests and influence in the Horn of Africa.<\/p>\n
Somalia and Ethiopia have a long history of rivalry and conflict, but they have recently improved their relations under the leadership of Abiy Ahmed, who became Ethiopia’s prime minister in 2018.<\/p>\n
Abiy has also initiated a peace process with Eritrea, Ethiopia’s former province that seceded in 1993 and fought a border war with Ethiopia from 1998 to 2000.<\/p>\n
However, the port deal with Somaliland has raised new challenges for the stability and cooperation in the region, as Somalia struggles to overcome decades of civil war and terrorism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The European Union has expressed its “full support” to the unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Somalia, amid rising tensions over a port deal between Ethiopia and the breakaway region of Somaliland. The EU’s foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, said he had a phone conversation with Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud on Thursday, and reaffirmed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":423257,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-423256","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-local"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/128"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423256"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":423258,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423256\/revisions\/423258"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}