Oromo PM kills any hope for Berbera

[Cumar]

Berbera may take an L, but the biggest loser is Djibouti which had most of the Ethiopian traffic already.

If I were Ismaciil Omar Guelleh, I would be very, very scared right now. Pretty much the entire economy there hinges on the business generated from exporting Ethiopian traffic.

 

[Somali Crusader]

Waa kuwii Quraanka lagu Sheegay

“Xaasidiina Idaa Xasad”

Waa ruunta wallahi, it was written. May Allah guide us through the maze of snakes

 

[Somali Crusader]

Berbera may take an L, but the biggest loser is Djibouti which had most of the Ethiopian traffic already.

If I were Ismaciil Omar Guelleh, I would be very, very scared right now. Pretty much the entire economy there hinges on the business generated from exporting Ethiopian traffic.

On the bright side if anybody is responsible for Djibouti’s eventual downfall it was Somaliland, we set the wheels in motion

 

[Disappointed]

This is great news. I hope President Ahmed will also stop the Oromos that are attacking Somalis.

 

[Cumar]

On the bright side if anybody is responsible for Djibouti’s eventual downfall it was Somaliland, we set the wheels in motion

What on earth are you talking about? That's not what I am saying at all.

I am saying that Djibouti positioned itself as Ethiopia's gateway to the Red Sea. If Asmara is now in play then obviously Djibouti's strategic value to Ethiopia falls. IOG should have diversified, that is my point.

Nothing to do with Somaliland at all. I am not anti-Djibouti.

 

[Cumar]

Btw, even if Ethiopia never uses the port (worst case scenario) at least the upgrades to modernize the port are fully underway and will be a long-term infrastructure investment.

 

[Somali Crusader]

What on earth are you talking about? That's not what I am saying at all.

I am saying that Djibouti positioned itself as Ethiopia's gateway to the Red Sea. If Asmara is now in play then obviously Djibouti's strategic value to Ethiopia falls. IOG should have diversified, that is my point.

Nothing to do with Somaliland at all. I am not anti-Djibouti.

Were you not paying attention? Ethiopia was using Djibouti for years until SL made a deal with UAE which Ethiopia eventually joined. This started the race for Ethiopia to look at other ports as options too. They weren’t going to abandon Djibouti until a partner like UAE came through. And that’s all Somalilands doing . Djibouti will eventually collapse because it is a corrupt place but the only thing holding it together was foreign military bases and being able to tax Ethiopia’s high population for using their ports

 

[Saalax Bidaar]

@Cumar

I think UAE is pulling the strings since they have been trying to forge economic and security cooperation with Asmara. They are going to build Military base in Eritrea as well.

UAE brokered agreement between Egypt and Ethiopia, between Eritrea and Ethiopia.

Ethiopians aren’t smart nor economically flexible to invest in Ports in Somalia, Sudan, and Eritrea. It is the UAE who are doing that thru Ethiopia

 

[Saahid Qamaan]

This has the UAE‘s writing all over it. They made the change possible and possibly convinced the Shacbiya despot to play along as the UAE was the only financial factor and country they have good relationship too.

UAE is with war with Djibouti but Djibouti will not fall as they have their own large project on going with their Free Trade Zone which will rival UAE‘s ambition.

UAE is also on a war with Pakistan who also are hurting their ambition with China building Gwadar Port.

After UAE were kicked out from Doraleh DP World where they operated a terminal they came running to Somalia where they faced another obstacle.

Now Qatar is in the picture too. This is a economic trade war brewing on the Indian Ocean/Bab Al Mandeb Red Sea and Arabian Sea.

The countries competing for trade are UAE, Pakistan, Somalia its regional States, China and Djibouti with Qatar and Turkey partnering Somalia‘s FG against UAE‘s ambition to make Gwadar port a failure.

 

[Saahid Qamaan]

Saalax very good insights you pretty much nailed it Maashaallah

 

[Saalax Bidaar]

@Saahid Qamaan

That’s interesting. They’re in Pakistan as well? Seems this is getting very serious

 

[Ridwan779]

@Saahid Qamaan

That’s interesting. They’re in Pakistan as well? Seems this is getting very serious

China is trying to make Gwadar into the next Dubai.

 

[Crow]

This article was written back in December. This was the previous Ethiopian administration's foreign policy. Completely different from their current one.
http://risingpowersproject.com/quarterly/ethiopia-berbera-port-shifting-balance-power-horn-africa/

This is because Ethiopia’s interest in developing the port of Berbera and fostering closer ties with Hargeisa go beyond strategic considerations such as resolving Ethiopia’s landlockedness or economic considerations of imports and exports. Rather, the development and expansion of the port of Berbera simultaneously supports the two primary pillars of Ethiopia’s regional policy deemed essential to Ethiopia’s indivisibility, aspirations of hegemony and, indeed, survival. The first involves maintaining Eritrea’s isolation in order to weaken it to the point that it implodes, is formally reunited to Ethiopia or becomes a pliant, client state (Bereketeab, 2017; Bereketeab, 2013). Until 2015, Ethiopia, with the assistance of the UN and further helped by a cavalcade of allegations of human rights abuses perpetrated by the government of President Isaias Afwerki in Asmara, had been fairly successful in corralling and isolating Eritrea. The second pillar held dear by the mandarins of Addis Ababa rests on maintaining the status quo in post-civil war Somalia (Cornwell, 2006). Simply put, a weak and fractured Somalia means that Ethiopia can concentrate its attention and forces on quelling persistent internal security difficulties and continuing to isolate and pressure Eritrea.

Background info on Eritrea's port and UAE.

In 2008, Eritrea granted Iran access to Assab Port, providing Tehran with a support base from which to conduct maritime operations in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean (Lefebvre, 2012). The Saudi and Yemeni authorities fretted in particular that Iran would use Eritrean territory, especially the Hanish archipelago in the Red Sea, as a conduit for shipping arms to Shia Houthi rebels in northern Yemen (Al Arabiya, 2015). Concern in Gulf capitals over Iran’s burgeoning military maritime presence in the Red Sea/Gulf of Aden area, and more specifically its political relationship with Eritrea, coincided with a growing assertiveness of the Gulf States to intervene abroad (Ulrichsen, 2011; 120-121).

However, in late April 2015, only a few weeks into the campaign, an altercation between a senior Emirati diplomat and the commander of Djibouti’s air force ruptured bilateral relations between the UAE and Djibouti (GSN, 2016).9 Relations were already sour after Djibouti tried to force a renegotiation of DP World’s 30-year port contract (2006-2036) and, after negotiations faltered, made allegations that the Dubai-based company was involved in serious corruption (Stevis & Fitch, 2016). As a consequence, the UAE (and to some extent Saudi Arabia) moved closer to Eritrea, which ended its formal cooperation agreement with Iran (Solomon, 2016). Throwing in its lot with the Arab Gulf States, Eritrea agreed to lease its Hanish Islands and facilities at the port city of Assab to the UAE for 30 years. This was one piece of a much wider UAE-Eritrea security agreement (Hokayem & Roberts, 2016; 171). With the signing of this agreement Assab became the UAE’s first major power projection base outside of the Arabian Peninsula (Getachew, 2010). Starting with very little, Assab has been substantially developed by the UAE. It now includes a modern airbase10, a military training depot, and, significantly, a deep-water port under construction (Katzman, 2017; 17).

Ethiopia's reaction to UAE's new relationship with Eritrea.

Alarm bells rang in Addis Ababa over what was perceived as a significant breach of Eritrea’s isolation, with Ethiopian leaders taking the view that any expansion of Eritrean power would result in a corresponding loss of power for Ethiopia. Ethiopia has concrete reasons for concern over an emboldened Eritrea. Recent UN monitoring mission reports on Eritrea conclude that the country supports armed groups in Ethiopia and offers sanctuary to anti-government rebels in its own country (UN Monitoring Group, 2016; 3).11Blaming a wave of unrest in regions around Addis Ababa in late 2016 on Eritrea, Ethiopian government spokesman, Getachew Reda noted, “There are countries which are directly involved in arming, financing and training these elements” (Reuters Staff, 2015b)

Following the UAE’s tightening relationship with Eritrea and the construction activity at Assab Port, the Ethiopian leadership feared that the UAE’s attention had swung towards Eritrea. A suitably panicked Ethiopia sent senior officials to Abu Dhabi in October 2015 to plead with the country’s leadership not to pursue the deal with Eritrea and focus on refurbishing and utilizing the port of Berbera (CDE, 2016). As Werqneh Gebeyehu, Ethiopia’s Minister of Transport put it, “We are better off having the UAE investing in Somaliland than in Eritrea,” adding, “We would not like to see any investment going to Eritrea…” (Somaliland Sun, 2016).

Ethiopia had been attempting to curry the interest of Abu Dhabi and Dubai in Berbera Port for some time and this round of urgent discussions was by no means the first time Addis Ababa had engaged the UAE regarding Berbera.

“Ethiopia wanted 30 percent of its trade to go via Berbera by July of 2015, according to a five-year growth plan published in 2010,” noted Ethiopia’s Transport Minister.

:siilaanyolaugh:

Ethiopia’s push to develop Berbera Port and convince the UAE to abandon Assab were assisted by two critical developments which affected decision making in both Abu Dhabi and Dubai. The first was the aforementioned spat between Djibouti and DP World. The second was the slow shift in the focus of UAE military operations in Yemen from the west coast to the east of Aden, particularly the Hadramout (Pollack & Knights, 2016). Given the shift in the UAE’s military focus in Yemen and the fraught relations with Djibouti,13 the UAE’s, and correspondingly DP World’s, interest in Berbera increased (Fitch, 2014). In economic terms, the port be potentially lucrative given Ethiopian assurances of imports and exports and the relatively small amount of financing required to upgrade the port. In political terms, the strategic importance of Berbera increased for the UAE given its proximity to Aden and areas east and lessened to some degree the importance of Assab to the UAE.

Ethiopia’s diplomatic push and offer of economic incentives, coinciding with developments across the Gulf of Aden, finally achieved Addis Ababa’s desired results when, in May 2016, DP World signed an agreement to develop and manage Berbera Port for 30 years (Stevis & Fitch, 2016).

It looks like @IslamIsTheAnswer is actually right about Berbera being in trouble. The primary purpose of the Berbera port to begin with was to provide UAE with an alternative port to Assab. However, Ethiopia has completely flipped over their foreign policy since Abiy came to power. With the reopening of Eritrean ports to Ethiopia, Berbera loses its purpose.

UAE is also surely behind the scenes in orchestrating all this. They met with Afwerki the other day.
They also recently injected $3 billion into Ethiopia's economy to rescue their failing currency and seem to be cooperating very closely with them lately.
I wonder what that means for the UAE military base in Berbera. UAE seems very fickle. For example, what will happen when the war in Yemen ends?

We should also consider Abiy's new approach to Somalia. The Somaliland consulate in Ethiopia was recently closed. It looks like Abiy will be going through Farmajo from now on in dealing with Somaliland.

 

[Suhaib]

Always enjoy seeing @IslamIsTheAnswer getting pummelled in his own thread

 

[Futurist]

wow

Lowlife Somalia unionists like @IslamIsTheAnswer are unbelievable

This story has nothing to do with Somaliland

Yet the only thing they see and get pleasure from is how it can harm Somaliland/Berbera...the xasadnimo runs so deep

And they supposedly want to unite with Somaliland

 

[Somali Crusader]

wow

Lowlife Somalia unionists like @IslamIsTheAnswer are unbelievable

This story has nothing to do with Somaliland

Yet the only thing they see and get pleasure from is how it can harm Somaliland/Berbera...the xasadnimo runs deep

And they want to unite with Somaliland

@Saalax Bidaar hit the nail on the head Allah told us about lowlifes like him .

 

[Futurist]

@Saalax Bidaar hit the nail on the head Allah told us about lowlifes like him .

This is why Somaliland can never trust these lowlife fake unionsts

 

[World]

Berbera may take an L, but the biggest loser is Djibouti which had most of the Ethiopian traffic already.

If I were Ismaciil Omar Guelleh, I would be very, very scared right now. Pretty much the entire economy there hinges on the business generated from exporting Ethiopian traffic.

Djibouti has the infrastructure that Eritrea is lacking. It’ll take years for Eritrea to even get near Djibouti’s level. And even then, you’re probably only looking at Northern Ethiopia. It’s more convenient for the rest of the country to use Djibouti’s port.

 

[Suhaib]

wow

Lowlife Somalia unionists like @IslamIsTheAnswer are unbelievable

This story has nothing to do with Somaliland

Yet the only thing they see and get pleasure from is how it can harm Somaliland/Berbera...the xasadnimo runs so deep

And they supposedly want to unite with Somaliland

That Madow is not a unionist, he hates Hawiye and Isaaq deeply

 

[TheAnswer]

This is why Somaliland can never trust these lowlife fake unionsts

I've never advocated love or unity for iddor, my policy has always been one of their subjugation and Darood supremacy.