Troop Allocation Hinders Ethiopia’s Role in AUSSOM for Somalia, Says Minister

[Deeq A.]

Ali Omar: “The challenge now is that most of the troop quotas have already been allocated, leaving very little to distribute. We are actively working to find a solution.”

Mogadishu (PP News Desk) — The State Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Government of Somalia, Ali Omar, said that the earlier AUSSOM troop allocation constitutes an obstacle to inviting Ethiopian forces as peacekeepers in Somalia. Omar claimed that the maritime Memorandum of Understanding was the bone of contention, but it had been resolved through the Ankara Agreement.

“The challenge now is that most of the troop quotas have already been allocated, leaving very little to distribute. We are actively working to find a solution,” Omar said.

Last year, the Federal Government of Somalia excluded Ethiopia from a new peacekeeping force set to operate in Somalia from 2025. Somalia claimed that Ethiopia violated its territorial integrity by signing a maritime Memorandum of Understanding with the Somaliland administration, a secessionist entity.

Balqiis, a Somali think tank, argued that no agreement had been reached on funding for AUSSOM. The politicisation of security forces and persistent political disagreements between the Federal Government of Somalia and key federal member states factor into the decisions of donor countries that pledged funds for AUSSOM. Donors expressed reservations about the abrupt political decisions of the incumbent Federal Government of Somalia, which views AUSSOM as a political vehicle to marginalise rival authorities.

“Keeping troops from Egypt and Ethiopia in Somalia, despite their apparent disagreement over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, reflects foreign policy myopia on the part of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud. He gave in to the demands of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who sponsored the Ankara Summit and Agreement outside the framework of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS),” said a political scientist in Mogadishu.   

© Puntland Post, 2025

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