Federal forces intervened in this geographically expansive but sparsely populated region last week in order to restore law and order there after the state’s government challenged the central authorities by provocatively deploying their Liyu counter-insurgency forces to the federal city of Dire Dawa. Former Somali Regional President Abdi Mohamoud Omar’s heavy-handed tactics against the previously…
The Ethiopian premier can’t win this year’s Nobel Peace Prize for technical reasons, but he nevertheless deserves global recognition for his peacemaking successes. The Nobel Committee will award its eponymous Peace Prize on 5 October, and while Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy certainly deserves this more than anyone else, it’s impossible for him to receive it…
The alliance of the UAE and Egypt is expanding its zone of influence in the Horn of Africa, including the establishment of Ethiopian-Eritrean relations. There is a noticeable Emirati influence in Ethiopia, where they compete with the Qatar-Turkey alliance. Saudi Arabia, being a rival of the UAE and Egypt, supports them in the region against…
Ethiopia’s proposed mediating the lingering dispute between its Eritrean and Djiboutian neighbors as it takes the lead in pioneering peace in the Horn of Africa. The brief 2008 border conflict between these two tiny, impoverished, but strategically positioned Red Sea states had previously seen the UN-mandated intervention of Qatari peacekeepers along their disputed frontier, but…
UAE Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan awarded the eponymous Order of Zayed to the leaders of Ethiopia and Eritrea for their fast-moving achievements in ending the two-decade-long conflict between their countries, highlighting the Emirates’ previously silent role in mediating between the two sides and underscoring its rise as a transregional power in the…
On 9 July 2018, in a historic meeting in the Eritrean capital, Asmara, Ethiopia’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, and Eritrea’s president, Isaias Afewerki, signed an agreement on peace and friendship, officially ending their almost two decades-long cold war. To reach this point, on 5 June, Ethiopia finally accepted a peace agreement that both countries had…
