Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has warned Ethiopia against taking steps to implement a controversial port deal it brokered with the breakaway region of Somaliland.
Under a memorandum of understanding signed on January 1, Somaliland leased landlocked Ethiopia 20km of its coastland around the port of Berbera, on the Gulf of Aden, for 50 years for military and commercial purposes.
Mohamud says Ethiopian assets would have to cross into Somalia’s territory to reach the leased area and warned Addis Ababa against taking such a step.
Egypt, which is involved in a separate dispute with Ethiopia over a major dam on the Blue Nile, has vowed to stand with Mogadishu in the Somaliland dispute.