Addis Abeba \u2013 Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed told lawmakers today that it was not necessary for the government neighboring Somalia to go around other countries to accuse Ethiopia when issues between Ethiopia and Somalia due to the former\u2019s attempts to secure direct access to the Red Sea, can be settled with \u201cone hour flight and one our discussion with us.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is very simple because we have no fight with the Somali government,\u201d PM Abiy said, but instead, the Somali government \u201cchose to go around and accuse us.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy advice is don\u2019t waste money; we spend money when we go around countries,\u201d he said in a direct message. \u201cThere is no need to go around other countries to accuse us when it is possible to come to us in Addis Abeba. We are ready for a discussion, he said, adding that the money can be better spent on \u201cbuilding a one km walkway, or one school in Mogadishu; the people will benefit\u201d from that, he said.<\/p>\n
Ethiopia follows neighbor-centered and friendly foreign policy approach and the people of Somalia and the various Somali clans \u201clive within us; we have sacrificed for peace in Somalia and the ruling party is showing its respect to Somalia and its people \u201cmore than any other government,\u201d PM Abiy said, Ethiopia has \u201cempowered\u201d Somalia, and that the Ethiopian government \u201chas no question about Somalia\u2019s unity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking about the 01 January Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Somaliland, Abiy said it was signed after Ethiopia \u201chad tabled the question to all our neighbors and received no response; after we begged [and] asked all, not because we have questions about Somalia\u2019s unity.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Premier also pushed back against accusations that his government is working to dismantle Somalia. \u201cEthiopia doesn\u2019t want the disintegration of Somalia; it would not have sacrificed its children\u201d if it wanted that.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026 Ethiopia has a question, it is difficult to be landlocked with an economy of this size. This is a national interest issue.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sticking to his initial argument on gaining direct access to the sea, Abiy repeated the Ethiopian government\u2019s request is \u201caccess to the sea. This is a legitimate question. Just like any other commodity it should be addressed peacefully and with discussion. Ethiopia is ready to accept that\u201d.<\/p>\n
He mentioned countries in the Horn of Africa, such as Somalia and Djibouti, that have access to the Red Sea but are not producing as much as Ethiopia does. \u201cwe have better land, better water, energy\u2026there is no problem if we give avocado and share the [see access] that is trade. It is good to cooperate and march together, both for the region and the future of our children.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ethiopia\u2019s legitimate question for sea access is therefor \u201cnot a question you can suppress by demanding for it not to be asked.\u201d<\/p>\n
He addressed the people of Eritrea, Djibouti, Kenya, Sudan, and Somalia \u201cthey are our brothers and we want no ill for them. We want to live in peace; this is a big country that has a big army, big people\u201d and Ethiopia is like a big brother and a shield for all these countries that will be there in their times of need, not a force of destruction.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut Ethiopia has a question, it is difficult to be landlocked with an economy of this size. This is a national interest issue.\u201d Ethiopia wants to \u201creconcile this without lives lost; without insulting each other and without wasting money traveling to [other] countries. If there is a win-win approach for common benefit, the Ethiopian government is always ready to work together. It can\u2019t be a shame when it is Ethiopia\u2019s interest and correct when it is others\u2019 interest,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
On 01 July, the foreign ministers of Ethiopia and Somalia were in T\u00fcrkiye for a discussion and decided to hold a second round talk in Ankara on 02 September. According to the joint statement, the ministers engaged in \u201ccandid and forward-looking exchanges concerning their differences, with T\u00fcrkiye acting as a mediator.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a resolution issued in January this year, the members of both the Executive and the Central Committee, the ruling Prosperity Party (PP) said that the party has decided to bring the Memorandum of MoU \u201cto a practical agreement\u201d while simultaneously giving attention to the principles of give and take to secure additional options to port access with other neighboring countries.<\/p>\n
By: Addis Standard.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Addis Abeba \u2013 Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed told lawmakers today that it was not necessary for the government neighboring Somalia to go around other countries to accuse Ethiopia when issues between Ethiopia and Somalia due to the former\u2019s attempts to secure direct access to the Red Sea, can be settled with \u201cone hour flight and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":65693,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77483"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77483"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77484,"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77483\/revisions\/77484"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}