- MPs want Ruto to convene Igad meeting to discuss the stalemate.
- Somalia government has rejected the port deal.
Image: FILE
Some North Eastern lawmakers now want President William Ruto to convene an urgent IGAD meeting to discuss the Somalia, Ethiopia port row.
The lawmakers led by Adan Keynan (Eldas)and Farah Maalim (Dadaab), warned that the contested agreement between Somaliland and Ethiopia is a recipe of chaos that might spill over into the country.
Somaliland is a breakaway of the Somalia Republic and is not recognised by the United Nations as an independent country.
Somalia claims Somaliland is part of its territory.
The leaders were responding to a contested memorandum of cooperation and partnership between Somalia and Ethiopia in which Somaliland agreed to lease a 20km stretch of sea port access to Addis Ababa.
According to the agreement, Ethiopia Naval forces will access the stretch for 50 years in exchange for international recognition.
Ethiopia being a landlocked country, has been depending on neighbouring Djibouti for most of its commercial activities.
Somalia has however rejected the port deal insisting that no one has the power to give away a piece of Somalia.
Keynan addressing a press conference at Parliament Buildings on Thursday, said the agreement is a recipe for chaos that needs urgent regional interventions.
He called on President Ruto who chairs Intergovernmental Authority on Development Quartet Group of Countries, to schedule a meeting to thwart the simmering regional security crisis.
The Eldas MP also challenged all other regional bodies to join forces in forestalling possible chaos, conflict and insecurity in the region.
“President Ruto should urgently convene Igad meeting to address this issue before it goes out of hand,” Keynan said.
“We call on the African Union, IGAD and the United Nations to urgently institute measures for cessation of hostilities by calling for an urgent end to this blatant provocation by the Federal Republic of Ethiopia, and immediate cancellation of “Memorandum of Understanding of partnerships and Cooperation.”
Farah on his part warned that Kenya will bear the biggest brunt should Ethiopia succeeded in claiming a section of Somalia.
The Dadaab lawmaker called on Addis Ababa to conform to the international conventions and agreements, and respect territorial integrity of all countries in the region.
“We unequivocally state that the Ethiopian government’s action to enter into a agreement and effectively establish direct international relations with a region of Somalia, is in breach of the territorial integrity and abuse of the political independence of the state of Somalia,” Farah said.
“Ethiopia is a signatory to the UN Charter, The African Union Constitutive Act, Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and several other international treaties that regulate the conduct and relations between nations, as such, we find bizarre that it has chosen to act unconscientiously.”
“It baffles that being the nation that suffered the most recent war which claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, and thus expected to prudently target its human and financial resources towards nation-building and healing the (still) fresh wounds occasioned by the Tigray War, is instead, gearing up to open a new war front with a friendly nation.”
MPs Faraha Sahah (Fafi) and Mohamed Abdikadir (Lagdera) also attended the briefing at Parliament Buildings.