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Somalia Says It Will Never Accept Ethiopian Naval Base in Somaliland

The port of Berbera in Somaliland offers Ethiopia access to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal further north. (AFP)
The port of Berbera in Somaliland offers Ethiopia access to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal further north. (AFP)
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Somalia Says It Will Never Accept Ethiopian Naval Base in Somaliland

The port of Berbera in Somaliland offers Ethiopia access to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal further north. (AFP)
The port of Berbera in Somaliland offers Ethiopia access to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal further north. (AFP)

Somalia will never accept Ethiopia's plan to build a naval base in its breakaway region of Somaliland, but it would consider granting Ethiopia commercial port access if discussed bilaterally, Somalia's state minister for foreign affairs said on Friday.

Landlocked Ethiopia sparked a diplomatic row with Mogadishu in January by signing a deal with Somaliland to lease 20 km (12 miles) of its coastline in return for recognizing the region as an independent state.

Somalia called the deal illegal as it considers Somaliland as part of its territory even though it has had effective autonomy since 1991.

"Somalia will never accept (a) naval base ... Somalia is ready for commercial access in accordance with the international law of the sea," Somalia's state minister for foreign affairs Ali Omar told Reuters.

He added that Somalia was willing to discuss proposals so long as they meet the country's interests which are to "safeguard (our) sovereignty, political independence and unity".

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Arab World

Toll in Syria Opposition-army Fighting Rises to 242

Fighters from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) ride in military vehicles in the eastern outskirts of the town of Atarib, in Syria's northern province of Aleppo on November 27, 2024, during clashes with the Syrian army. (Photo by Abdulaziz KETAZ / AFP)
Fighters from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) ride in military vehicles in the eastern outskirts of the town of Atarib, in Syria's northern province of Aleppo on November 27, 2024, during clashes with the Syrian army. (Photo by Abdulaziz KETAZ / AFP)
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Toll in Syria Opposition-army Fighting Rises to 242

Fighters from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) ride in military vehicles in the eastern outskirts of the town of Atarib, in Syria's northern province of Aleppo on November 27, 2024, during clashes with the Syrian army. (Photo by Abdulaziz KETAZ / AFP)
Fighters from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) ride in military vehicles in the eastern outskirts of the town of Atarib, in Syria's northern province of Aleppo on November 27, 2024, during clashes with the Syrian army. (Photo by Abdulaziz KETAZ / AFP)

More than 240 people, mostly combatants, were killed as intense fighting approached Syria's northern Aleppo city after the opposition launched a major offensive on government-held areas this week, a monitor said Friday.
On Wednesday, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and allied Turkish-backed factions launched an attack on government-held areas in the northwest, triggering the fiercest fighting since 2020, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Observatory, said fighting reached two kilometers (1.2 miles) from the main northern city of Aleppo, where the group’s artillery shelling on student housing killed four civilians, according to state media.
"The combatants' death toll in the ongoing... operation in the Idlib and Aleppo countrysides has risen to 218," since Wednesday, said the British-based monitor with a network of sources inside Syria.
In addition to the fighters, it said 24 civilians were killed.
Syrian ally Russia launched air strikes that killed 19 civilians on Thursday, while another civilian had been killed in Syrian army shelling a day earlier, said the Observatory which on Thursday had reported an overall toll of about 200 dead, including the civilians.