Ethiopia’s Abiy Seeks to Calm Tensions Over Red Sea Access

Fasika Tadesse and Simon Marks
·2 min read
6
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

(Bloomberg) -- Ethiopia won’t use force to attain direct access to a Red Sea port, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said, toning down previous remarks directed at the landlocked Horn of Africa nation’s neighbors.

Most Read from Bloomberg

“Recently, when Ethiopia expressed the need for discussions on some issues, we are hearing concerns that Ethiopia could do invasions,” Abiy told a ceremony in Addis Ababa on Thursday to mark the country’s National Army Day. “We don’t have a plan to achieve our objectives through force and I want to assure you that we won’t pull a trigger on our brothers.”

In a televised lecture earlier this month, Abiy identified access to the ocean as a strategic objective and warned that failure to secure it could lead to conflict. His remarks drew rebukes from Eritrea, Somalia and Djibouti, all of whom described their sovereignty and territorial integrity as sacrosanct and not open for discussion.

Abiy’s position on the Red Sea raised concerns among diplomats of fresh regional instability with Ethiopia already struggling to quell widespread domestic dissent, particularly in the northern Amhara region where militias are resisting efforts to incorporate them in the federal army.

His administration also is in talks to restructure debt after its finances took a hit from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and a two-year civil war with the government in the northern Tigray region.

“Further instability in the Horn of Africa is in no-one’s interest,” a US State Department spokesperson said by email. “Disputes must be resolved through dialog, and both Ethiopia and Eritrea must avoid provocation.”

While the hostilities in Amhara dealt a blow to Ethiopia’s ambitions of reviving investment inflows after the civil war, they have since eased and its economy remains one of Africa’s fastest-growing, according to Bilal Bassiouni, head of Middle East and North Africa forecasting for consultancy Pangea-Risk. He also sees the government’s recent engagements with China boosting its prospects of settling settling its debt, he said.

“We don’t expect them in the short term to default on those debts,” although the political situation remains volatile and the push by the federal government to centralize control raises the risk for flare-ups, Bassiouni said in an interview in Cape Town on Thursday. While Ethiopia’s sole access to the Red Sea via a port in Djibouti makes it vulnerable and isn’t sustainable, “they aren’t likely to seek direct confrontations with their neighbors, but they will definitely try look for avenues” to utilize other harbors, he said.

(Updates with analyst comment in last two paragraphs.)

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

©2023 Bloomberg L.P.