NAIROBI: Ethiopia on Friday announced that it will collaborate with a new African Union force against Al-Shabab insurgents in Somalia, which is set to deploy later this month.
Somalia had previously indicated that Ethiopian troops would not take part due to strained relations between the Horn of Africa countries after landlocked Ethiopia signed a maritime agreement with the breakaway region of Somaliland to gain access to the coast.
But after months of wrangling, the two neighbors agreed to a detente in a deal brokered by Turkiye.
Ethiopian Defense Minister Aisha Mohammed led a high-level visit to Somalia on Thursday, meeting President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and delivering a message from Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.
BACKGROUND
The UN Security Council gave its green light late last year to create a new AU mission in Somalia.
“The discussions reaffirmed the commitment of both countries to work together to ensure peace and stability in Somalia and the region,” said a statement from the Ethiopian Foreign Ministry.
“The two countries agreed to collaborate on the AUSSOM mission and strengthen bilateral ties,” it added, referring to the African Union Support and Stabilization Mission in Somalia.
Somalia’s Foreign Ministry said it had “expressed its willingness to consider Ethiopia’s request” on AUSSOM without providing more details.
“Somalia underscores the importance of these high-level bilateral discussions,” the ministry said in a statement, adding that it was a key step toward “reaffirming respect for (Somalia’s) sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Somalia had threatened to force Ethiopia to remove some 10,000 experienced troops from the shared border in the country’s southwest, among the worst-impacted areas by Al-Shabab.
Al-Shabab has been waging a bloody insurgency against Somalia’s federal government for more than 17 years and has carried out numerous bombings in Mogadishu and elsewhere in the country.
Although driven out of the capital by AU forces in 2011, Al-Shabab still has a strong presence in rural Somalia.
The UN Security Council gave its green light late last year to create a new AU mission in Somalia.
Fourteen out of 15 council members adopted a resolution, with only the United States abstaining due to concerns about financing.
The peacekeeping force will replace the UN-backed African Union Transition Mission in Somalia, or ATMIS.
Until it was withdrawn on Dec. 31, ATMIS could have up to 12,000 troops to counter the continued threat from Al-Shabab. Somalia and Ethiopia were invited to take part in the UN Security Council meeting without voting.
Somalia’s representative used the occasion to explain that bilateral agreements in November provided some 11,000 troops to AUSSOM from partner countries.
The text adopted included the possibility of using a mechanism created by the UNSC the previous year for an AU force with UN backing and financed up to 75 percent by the world body.
Somalia’s Foreign Minister Ali Mohammed Omar traveled to Addis Ababa last week to meet his Ethiopian counterpart Mesganu Arega, the day after deadly strikes in the border area of Doolow, to try to keep the fragile peace between the two countries.
Somalia said that Ethiopian troops had attacked its forces stationed at an airstrip in the border town located in the Somali state of Jubaland.
But Jubaland state officials said the Ethiopian troops, who are also based at the airstrip as part of a mission against insurgents, had intervened to protect a group of local politicians when they came under attack from Somali federal forces.
