Pivoting to Qatar Puts the Somali Government in a Quandary

[Deeq A.]

President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and Amir Tamim Binu Hamad in Doha

Mogadishu (PP Special Report ) — The relations between the United Arab Emirates and the Federal Government of Somalia under the incumbent President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud improved after the 2022 election. The Federal Government of Somalia upgraded frosty diplomatic ties to closer relations between the two countries. The security agreement between the UAE and Somalia signed after May 2022 was meant to inspire confidence in the UAE whose plans to secure the management of more Somali seaports was put on hold when the previous federal Government of Somalia under President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed had officially complained to the United Nations about a naval base that the Emirates was planning to have in Berbera in addition to the management of Berbera Port under DP World, a parastatal.

President Mohamud introduced an extremely politically pragmatic approach to bilateral relations. When he was a presidential candidate he objected to the Horn Africa Economic Integration on grounds that Somalia lacked the institutional capacity to cope with economic integration, but when was elected in 2022 he had embraced the initiative. It was easier for him to make his priority winning back the United Arab Emirates to replace reliance on Qatar, which bankrolled the administration of his predecessor.

Relations between the Federal Government of Somalia and the UAE soured after the signing of the maritime agreement in Addis Ababa in January 2024 by the Prime Minister of Ethiopia Abiy Ahmed and the President of Somaliland government, a secessionist administration. The UAE is a strong backer of the Ethiopian Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, whom it sees as a key player in its agenda to leverage petrodollars by running as many African seaports as possible and buying agricultural land in Africa. The UAE is the first country to have violated the sovereignty of Somalia by signing an agreement with the Somaliland government to build a naval base followed by an agreement to run Berbera Port through DP World without the consent of the Federal Government of Somalia. Both Ethiopia and Somaliland government cite the sovereignty violations by UAE against Somalia as a precedent they interpret as economic development  endorsed by several agreements between the Federal Government of Somaliland and Somaliland Government. Upon returning to Hargeisa from Addis Ababa Muse Bihi Abdi, the President of Somaliland Administration, claimed that the President of the Federal Republic of Somalia “knew of the plan to sign maritime Memorandum of Understanding between Somaliland and Ethiopia.”

Last week, President Mohamud paid a visit to Qatar to witness the graduation of Somali Air Force officers trained in Qatar and re-establish ties. Qatar has unequivocally come out in support of Somalia’ sovereignty, unlike UAE’s lukewarm support to the territorial integrity of Somalia. This week President Mohamud attended a conference in the UAE to address security issues in Somalia, and held a meeting with President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. President Mohamud is now counting the geopolitical costs of being friends to all in the context of economic and security dependency.

Both Abiy and Bihi kept President Mohamud in the dark about the maritime Memorandum of Understanding despite Somalia renewing a defence pact with Ethiopia in December 2023, and endorsing all previous agreements with Somaliland during the Djibouti summit without revising the agreements that Somaliland Administration used  when it forcibly displaced Somalis from the South in Laascaanood in 2021. Pivoting to Qatar has put the Federal Government of Somalia in a state of a quandary.

© Puntland Post, 2024

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