The Turkish president hosts the leaders of Somalia and Ethiopia and claims they have found common ground in their territorial dispute.
President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan claims that Somalia and Ethiopia “have taken their first steps towards a new beginning of peace and cooperation”.
President Erdoğan is hosted by the President of Somalia Hassan Sheikh Mahmud and the Prime Minister of Ethiopia Abiy Ahmed In Ankara, Turkey, where the parties discussed the territorial dispute between Ethiopia and Somalia.
Somalia and Ethiopia have been at loggerheads ever since the Republic of Somaliland, which declared itself independent from Somalia, said it had leased a strip of beach to Ethiopia.
Landlocked Ethiopia has no port, and Ethiopia tried to gain access to the sea through Somaliland with its plan to build a port and military base on the shores of the Gulf of Aden.
Somalia did not like the plan, as it considers the internationally unrecognized Somaliland as its own territory.
Turkey’s Erdoğan has tried to mediate a settlement in the dispute, and now says on the messaging service X that the two countries have overcome “misunderstandings and hatred”.
According to Erdoğan, Somalia and Ethiopia have written a declaration of mutual understanding. Erdoğan believes that the agreement will bring “cooperation, economic development and success” to East Africa.