NAIROBI (Reuters) – Ethiopia’s foreign minister has expressed concerns about ammunition being supplied to Somalia potentially ending up with terrorists, Ethiopia’s state news reported on Tuesday.
The statement was made a day after an Egyptian warship unloaded heavy weaponry in Mogadishu.
Ethiopia, which has thousands of troops stationed in neighbouring Somalia to fight al Qaeda-linked Islamist insurgents, has fallen out with the Mogadishu government over its plans to build a port in the breakaway region of Somaliland.
Egypt and Somalia have drawn closer this year over their shared mistrust of Ethiopia, prompting Cairo to send two arms shipments to Mogadishu within a month, after they signed a joint security pact in August.
Ethiopia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Taye Astke Selassie said he was concerned that the supply of ammunition by “external forces would further exacerbate the fragile security and would end up in the hands of terrorists in Somalia,” Ethiopia News Agency reported.
Egypt, at odds with Ethiopia for years over Addis Ababa’s construction of a vast hydro dam on the headwaters of the Nile River, has also condemned the Somaliland port deal.
(Reporting by Hereward Holland; Editing by Bate Felix)
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