Ex-President Muse Bihi asserts that the AU, Arab League, and OIC compelled Abiy Ahmed to retract the Ethiopia-Somaliland Red Sea deal
By A. M. A.
HARGEISA, Somaliland — In his first long interview since leaving office, former Somaliland President Muse Bihi Abdi offered a blunt assessment of what went wrong with a bold, short-lived plan that last year appeared to promise Ethiopia a maritime lifeline—and Somaliland the diplomatic recognition it has long sought.
“The matter on our side was ready, but Ethiopia failed to move it forward,” Bihi told the Somaliland Chronicle, recounting the memorandum of understanding signed in January 2024 that would have given Addis Ababa access to a stretch of Somaliland’s Red Sea coast in exchange for recognition of Somaliland’s sovereignty. “The African Union, the Arab League led by Egypt, and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation all sided with Somalia.”
The revelation by one of the principal architects of the deal underscores how quickly a high-stakes, geopolitically fraught negotiation can collapse when regional and international actors marshal opposition. Bihi said the MoU—which he framed as a pragmatic exchange that would have eased Ethiopia’s dependence on Djibouti for maritime trade—unraveled not because of Hargeisa’s reservations, but because Addis Ababa “was under a lot of pressure.”
According to Bihi, that pressure was both intense and coordinated. “Arab states applied heavy pressure, and the OIC unanimously agreed Ethiopia was wrong. That is what forced the deal to collapse,” he said, adding that African capitals warned Ethiopia of concrete repercussions, including talk of relocating the African Union’s headquarters out of Addis Ababa if the government proceeded.
“We had not included this scenario in our planning,” Bihi conceded, reflecting on a miscalculation shared, he said, by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. The admission is striking coming from a leader who, for seven years, cultivated a reputation in Hargeisa for steady, sometimes combative diplomacy aimed at prying open international space for the unrecognized republic.
The MoU, signed with fanfare at the start of last year, touched raw nerves across the Horn of Africa and the broader Arab world. Mogadishu, which regards Somaliland as an inalienable part of Somalia despite Hargeisa’s self-rule since 1991, denounced the agreement as a violation of its territorial integrity. Regional organizations and capitals—notably Egypt, which has long had concerns about Red Sea access and maritime balance—rallied behind Somalia’s protest. That coalition, Bihi said, ultimately left Ethiopia politically isolated.
The fallout exposed the limits of transactional diplomacy in a region where identity, history, and rivalries are deeply intertwined. “Once the Arabs all sided with Somalia, Africa followed. Then the OIC joined—that’s nearly 50 countries. No one stood with Ethiopia,” Bihi said.
Beyond the sea-access episode, the interview ranged widely over the foreign-policy dilemmas that have defined Somaliland’s unrecognized statehood. Bihi detailed repeated pressure from Chinese diplomats after Hargeisa moved closer to Taipei, describing a confrontational exchange with Beijing’s ambassador in Mogadishu.
“I told the Chinese ambassador, ‘If you don’t recognize me, there’s nothing to discuss,’” Bihi recalled. He said Chinese envoys later arrived in Hargeisa with offers of money and projects if Somaliland severed ties with Taiwan. “They told us to ask for whatever we wanted, but we declined,” he said. “Money cannot buy our sovereignty.”
The Taiwan relationship—a representative office in Hargeisa was established in 2020—has become a flashpoint in Somaliland’s diplomatic balancing act. For Bihi, who argued that U.S. recognition would be a “game-changer,” cultivating ties with Taipei was both symbolic and strategic: a demonstration that Somaliland could conduct independent diplomacy despite Beijing’s pushback.
Bihi also reflected on domestic politics that, he said, complicated external outreach. He singled out the opposition Waddani Party’s refusal to accept the results of the 2017 election—a dispute that, he argued, “weakened Somaliland’s ability to project a united front internationally.” He praised the current administration for abandoning talks with Mogadishu—“the right decision,” he said—but criticized the speaker of parliament for blocking legislation that would have codified that stance.
On security, Bihi confirmed that Washington had explored basing arrangements in Berbera, Somaliland’s port on the Gulf of Aden, but urged caution. Any foreign military presence, he said, would have to guard against entangling Somaliland in broader regional conflicts or making it a target of retaliatory attacks from groups such as Yemen’s Houthis.
The former president’s account also offers a window into how regional powerplays shape outcomes on the ground: Egypt’s influence within Arab and African forums, the solidarity of Muslim-majority states through the OIC, and the diplomatic weight of Somalia’s government in rallying partners against what it framed as an affront to sovereignty.
For Bihi, the episode is a lesson in the limits of what small, unrecognized polities can accomplish by bilateral bargains alone. “Our quest for re-recognition is not a small task—it carries the weight of a nation’s will,” he said, urging Somalilanders to unite behind the effort. “This cause demands more than the effort of a few; it calls for every Somaliland citizen to stand behind it.”
As policymakers in Addis Ababa and capitals across the region continue to recalibrate, the episode leaves unresolved questions about whether future deals could produce a breakthrough for Somaliland—or simply expose the territory to renewed diplomatic rebuke. For now, the MoU’s collapse stands as a reminder that, in the Horn of Africa, the leverage of historic alliances and institutional politics often trumps the calculus of two national capitals.
