Somalia expelled the Ethiopian ambassador due to the dispute over the Somaliland port contract
Somalia has announced the expulsion of Ethiopia's ambassador to the country amid rising tensions over a dispute over a port agreement between Ethiopia and the breakaway region of Somaliland.
The Office of the Prime Minister of Somalia announced last Thursday that the Ethiopian Ambassador to the country, Mukhtar Mohamed, has been sent home for consultation.
The statement of the office also said, Mogadishu closes the Ethiopian embassies in Hargeisa, the capital and largest city of Somaliland, and Garowe, the capital of the autonomous region of Puntland.
The office of the prime minister of Somalia has continued to explain: "the open intervention of the Ethiopian government in the internal affairs of Somalia is a violation of the independence and sovereignty of Somalia".
In a short statement he gave through the X social network, Somalia's Foreign Minister Ali Omar added that Mohamed has been given 72 hours to leave the country. "Somalia stands firm in its independence," Omar emphasized saying: "Our decision to protect our territory is firm".
The bilateral dispute arose after landlocked Ethiopia signed an agreement on January 1 with Somaliland to lease 20 kilometers (12 miles) of the region's coastline.
Under the plan, the strip near the port of Berbera, on the Gulf of Aden, will be used by Ethiopia for 50 years for military and commercial purposes.
Ethiopia said it wants to establish a naval base in the coastal region of Somaliland, an approach to the possibility of recognizing Somaliland as a country and thus raising the anger and anger of Somalia - which accused Ethiopia of trying to seize part of its territory - and feared that the agreement may further destabilize the peace and stability of the Horn of Africa region..../
