The Eritrean embassy’s message is a warning over Somaliland, Ethiopia’s Red Sea ambitions and the emerging strategic contest involving Somalia, Israel and Washington
By Habtom Ghebrezghiabher
The Eritrean Embassy’s August 17 press release presents itself as a defense of Eritrea’s sovereignty and of Africa’s territorial order. But its most revealing phrase is not its defense of Eritrea. It is the title itself: “Eritrea’s Sovereignty Is Not Negotiable: Neither Is the Sovereignty of Any Other African Nation.”
That wording deserves closer attention. The Embassy is not simply responding to arguments about Eritrea. It is sending a message about Somaliland, Ethiopia and the Red Sea.
The immediate context is unmistakable. In January 2024, Ethiopia and Somaliland signed a Memorandum of Understanding concerning Ethiopian access to Somaliland’s coastline. The agreement opened the door to possible Ethiopian recognition of Somaliland, although such recognition has not been formalized. For Somaliland, the agreement offered a potential pathway toward international recognition; for Ethiopia, it offered a potential strategic outlet to the Red Sea.
That changed the regional strategic equation.
The Embassy’s carefully chosen language therefore matters. When it declares that the sovereignty of “any other African nation” is non-negotiable, it is invoking a principle directly relevant to Somalia’s claim over Somaliland and Ethiopia’s engagement with Hargeisa.
This is not incidental wording. It is a message to Ethiopia: do not use Somaliland to obtain strategic access to the Red Sea in a way that challenges Somalia’s territorial claim—and do not move toward recognizing Somaliland.
On Somaliland, Isaias Afwerki’s hostility runs deep. The dictator has long opposed even Somalia’s federal arrangement, let alone Somaliland’s independence—a statehood he has consistently opposed. Today, that opposition extends to the Ethiopia-Somaliland Memorandum of Understanding and to the possibility of a strategic Israeli footprint through Hargeisa.
This helps explain why Somaliland occupies such an important place in the Embassy’s sovereignty argument.
The issue is not simply whether Somaliland should or should not become independent. It is about who will shape the emerging strategic order around the Red Sea.
Ethiopia, Somaliland and potentially Israel could form a strategic relationship linking Ethiopian economic and security interests with Somaliland’s coastline and Israel’s Red Sea interests. From Afwerki’s perspective, such an alignment could fundamentally alter the regional balance.
This also helps explain Eritrea’s increasingly close relationship with Egypt. The two countries share a strong interest in containing Ethiopian regional ambitions. But their concerns also extend to the broader strategic competition involving Israel and the Red Sea. Blocking the emergence of an Ethiopia-Somaliland-Israel strategic axis is therefore an important element of the regional contest.
There is an important historical precedent.
In the past, Somalia became a proxy arena for the Afwerki–TPLF confrontation. The TPLF backed Somalia’s internationally recognized Transitional Federal Government, while Afwerki opposed it and supported the Islamic Courts Union, from which al-Shabaab later emerged. Somalia was therefore not simply an arena of Somali politics; it became part of a wider regional confrontation between Afwerki and the TPLF.
Today, the actors and circumstances have changed.
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Somaliland is becoming another arena in the strategic confrontation between Afwerki and Ethiopia.
Ethiopia sees Somaliland as a potential pathway to strategic maritime access. Somaliland sees Ethiopia as a potential pathway toward international recognition. Somalia regards the arrangement as a challenge to its territorial integrity. And Afwerki opposes both Somaliland’s independence and Ethiopia’s growing relationship with Hargeisa.
The Embassy’s title therefore takes on a much more specific meaning.
“Neither Is the Sovereignty of Any Other African Nation” is, in substantial part, a warning over Somaliland.
There is another irony. Afwerki invokes Ethiopian and Somali territorial integrity while Eritrean forces themselves are operating inside Ethiopian territory including Tigray, Afar and Amhara. His government invokes international law while supporting Russia despite its invasion of Ukraine. And his government invokes Somali sovereignty despite its own history of intervention in Somalia.
The problem, therefore, is not sovereignty itself.
Sovereignty matters. Territorial integrity matters. International law matters.
The problem is their selective political application.
Afwerki does not need to believe that Ethiopia is preparing to invade Eritrea in order to invoke Eritrean sovereignty. The domestic purpose is different. The sovereignty narrative reinforces the familiar message that Eritrea remains surrounded by enemies and permanently under threat, keeping Eritreans mobilized around Afwerki and his one-man rule.
But there is also a regional purpose.
The message to Ethiopia is: Eritrea will oppose any attempt to turn Somaliland into a pathway for Ethiopian strategic expansion or international recognition.
And there is potentially a message to Washington as well. If the United States seeks eventual normalization with Eritrea, Asmara will expect Washington to take Somalia’s sovereignty and territorial-integrity position seriously—and not treat Ethiopia’s engagement with Somaliland as merely an economic or maritime-access question.
This is why the Embassy’s statement should not be read simply as a legal defense of Eritrea against Ethiopia.
It is simultaneously a domestic political message to Eritreans and a strategic message to Ethiopia, Somalia and the United States.
Domestically: Eritrea is under threat; rally around the state and its leader.
Regionally: Somalia’s territorial integrity must be defended; Ethiopia must not use Somaliland to alter the regional balance.
The contradiction is that Afwerki cannot convincingly present himself as the uncompromising guardian of sovereignty while his government has itself violated the sovereignty of neighboring states and supported Russia despite its assault on Ukraine.
The issue, then, is not whether Eritrean sovereignty is negotiable.
It is not.
The issue is whether Afwerki can selectively invoke sovereignty whenever it advances his political and regional objectives while disregarding the same principle when it conflicts with them.
The Embassy’s press release is therefore much more than a statement about Eritrea.
Read closely, it is also a warning about Somaliland—and another chapter in Afwerki’s long-running strategic confrontation with Ethiopia.
About Habtom Ghebrezghiabher
