Saad Ali Shire\u2019s warning, reported by Bloomberg, follows the Federal Government of Somalia\u2019s declaration earlier this month that a Port of Berbera investment deal between DP World, the state of Somaliland and Ethiopia was \u201cnon-existent, null and void\u201d, arising from the fact that Somalia doesn\u2019t recognize Somaliland\u2019s 1991 declaration of autonomy.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Somalia decides to invade Somaliland\u201d over the development of the port, \u201cthen we will have the right to defend our territory,\u201d Mr Shire said in a phone interview, according to Bloomberg.<\/p>\n
Economic aims<\/strong><\/p>\n Mr Shire was speaking from Abu Dhabi on 17 March, where he was part of a Somaliland delegation meeting Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al Nahyan, the U.A.E.\u2019s deputy prime minister. \u201cThat confrontation of course will not be limited to us,\u201d he reportedly said.<\/p>\n Ethiopia was due to take a 19% stake in the Port of Berbera, following the signing of an agreement with DP World and the Somaliland Port Authority, which would have seen the former hold a 51% stake in the project and the latter 30%.<\/p>\n Shire told reporters in Dubai this week that Ethiopia\u2019s acquisition of a stake in the port was \u201ca symbol of recognition.\u201d Somaliland\u2019s declaration of autonomy from Somalia has yet to be recognized by any other nation, reported Bloomberg.<\/p>\n However, the stake is \u201cnot related to sovereignty or recognition of Somaliland,\u201d Ethiopian Transport Minister Ahmed Shide stated, according to Bloomberg.<\/p>\n Planned talks between Somaliland and Somalia, including on the \u201cfinal status\u201d of their relationship are on hold because \u201cthere\u2019s no point sitting across the table in this sort of atmosphere,\u201d Shire said<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A dispute over plans to develop Somaliland\u2019s Port of Berbera risks destabilising the Horn of Africa region, Somaliland\u2019s foreign affairs minister has claimed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":11542,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-11541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-africa"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11541"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11543,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11541\/revisions\/11543"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11541"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=11541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}