[ad_1]
Another diplomatic thaw was underway on Saturday in the troubled Horn of Africa region as Somalia's president visited Eritrea for the first time and as years of tension subsided. place to an embrace.
"Somalia is ready to write a new chapter in its relations with Eritrea," Abdinur Mohamed, a spokesman for President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, said on Twitter.
The two nations have not had diplomatic relations for nearly 15 years. Eritrea, one of the most closed nations in the world, remains under UN sanctions for allegedly supporting the al-Shabab-based extremist group based in Somalia. Eritrea denies it. Eritrea's Minister of Information, Yemane Meskel, said the three-day visit had taken place at the invitation of President Isaias Afwerki, who has since headed the country's independence. 1993. "The two leaders have already held a summit" photos of the meeting.
"The wind of change is here to stay in the Horn of Africa," said an Eritrean diplomat, the ambbadador to Japan Estifanos Afeworki, on Twitter.
The Somali leader's visit follows an astonishing diplomatic thaw in recent weeks between Eritrea and neighboring Ethiopia after more than two decades. Ethiopia under new reformist Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has already demanded that US sanctions against Eritrea be dropped.
The Secretary-General of the United States said the sanctions could be obsolete.
The changing relations in the Horn of Africa region are of interest to the rich Gulf countries located just across the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea. They have already fought to gain influence in African countries along one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, including Somalia and Eritrea. Landlocked Ethiopia also sees ports in both countries as opportunities for its growing economy.
The United Arab Emirates, which established a military base at the post of Assab in Eritrea after a Saudi-led coalition launched its war against Shia rebels in Yemen in 2015, played a role in relations between Eritrea and Ethiopia. welcoming days of leaders from both countries and hailing their "daring" gestures.
Somalia remains fragile under the threat of al-Shabab, which holds some rural areas and often carries out large-scale suicide bombings in the capital, Mogadishu. A bomb attack in a truck in October killed more than 500 people in the deadliest attack in the country's history.
___
Follow the news of Africa on https://twitter.com/AP_Africa
Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This document may not be published, distributed, rewritten or redistributed.
[ad_2]
Source link
