Somalia and Eritrea have agreed to work together towards addressing the tension arising from a port deal signed between Ethiopia and Somalia's breakaway region of Somaliland.
The President of Somalia Hassan Sheikh Mohamud was on a two-day working visit to Eritrea and returned home in the early hours of Tuesday.
President Mohamud and Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki ''held extensive and profound talks on bilateral, regional and international issues,'' according to a statement from the Somalian ministry of information.
'Provocative agenda'
''The two leaders agreed to work vigorously, through bilateral and complementary cooperation and within the framework of a wider regional complementarity, with patience and constructive spirit while refraining from a re-active posture to various provocative agendas,'' the statement added.
The visit by Somalia's President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud came just a week after the breakaway region of Somaliland reached a deal with Ethiopia that has raised tensions in the Horn of Africa.
Somalia has vehemently rejected the agreement, which gives landlocked Ethiopia access to the Red Sea through Somaliland.
Ethiopia-Somaliland cooperation
Ethiopia lost its Red Sea ports in the early 1990s after the Eritrean War of Independence, which lasted from 1961 to 1991.
In 1991, Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia, leading to the establishment of two separate nations. The separation resulted in Ethiopia losing direct access to the Red Sea and key ports.
As President Mohamud was visiting Eritrea which has tense relations with Ethiopia for years, the military commanders of Ethiopia and Somaliland met Monday in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa.
The two men discussed “discussed possible ways to work together on military cooperation.”
