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Somaliland, the northern third of Somalia, has governed itself since 1991 and been recognised by nobody. In December 2025 Israel became the first state to recognise it. Somalia, which still claims the territory, called it an attack on its unity, and Turkey, Egypt and most Arab and African governments agreed. Next door, Ethiopia, the world's most populous country without a coast, says access to the sea is a matter of survival and has looked for it first in Somaliland and then in Eritrea. Outside powers from the Gulf, Turkey, Israel and the United States are buying ports and bases along one of the busiest sea lanes in the world, while an armed Islamist movement holds much of the Somali countryside.
On 18 September 2026 the United States gave the United Nations one year to wind down its peacekeeping support in Somalia. The next day Washington lifted sanctions on Eritrea's ruling party and military. On 21 September seven armed groups formed an alliance against Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. Two days later Tigray rebels seized an airport as fighting resumed. On 28 September Ethiopia accused Sudan and Egypt of backing the Tigray rebels. On 30 September eight Egyptian sailors abducted off Somalia were released.
Somaliland. It has its own currency, army and elections, and has changed presidents peacefully by vote. Somalia's position, and the African Union's, is that borders inherited at independence cannot be changed by one side, or every border on the continent is open.
Ethiopia and the sea. Ethiopia lost its coast when Eritrea became independent in 1993. In 2024 it agreed with Somaliland to lease a stretch of shore, reportedly in return for recognition. Somalia treated this as an attempt to take its territory. Turkey brokered a climbdown. Ethiopia's prime minister has since spoken of the Eritrean port of Assab.
Patrons. The United Arab Emirates runs Somaliland's port. Turkey trains Somalia's army, runs Mogadishu's port and airport and is drilling for its oil. Egypt has sent troops to Somalia, with an eye on Ethiopia. Israel wants a foothold opposite Yemen.
Somaliland is part of the Somali Republic under its constitution and under every resolution of the United Nations and the African Union. Israel's recognition, like Ethiopia's deal before it, is a violation of Somali sovereignty by a state pursuing military aims of its own, and was condemned by more than twenty governments. Somalia is rebuilding after thirty years of war, fighting al-Shabaab with its allies, and will settle its internal questions by Somali dialogue.
Somaliland was a separate British territory, was independent for five days in 1960, entered a union voluntarily and left it after the government in Mogadishu bombed its cities and killed tens of thousands of its people. For thirty-five years it has kept the peace, held elections and policed its coast without aid, while Somalia has had none of these. Recognition rewards what works. New partners bring investment and security to a coast that needs both.
Somalia's leaves out that its government has had no authority in Somaliland since 1991 and little outside the capital for much of that time; that it has leased its own ports, airspace and oil to Turkey on terms its parliament barely saw; and that its president's changes to the constitution and the election rules have split it from two of its own member states.
Somaliland's leaves out that the eastern clans around Las Anod fought their way out of it in 2023 and want to stay with Somalia; that its first recognition came from a government reported to have raised the resettlement of Palestinians from Gaza, which Somaliland denies discussing; and that the recognition has cost it goodwill in the Arab and African states whose votes it needs.
Ethiopia's leaves out that its prime minister has called sea access a matter on which Ethiopia will not stay quiet for ever, which its neighbours hear as a threat; and that it signed with Somaliland without a word to the government whose territory it was by Ethiopia's own official position.
The aid agencies' and donors' leaves out that donors cut the funding they now lament, and that fifteen years of paying for a Somali state from outside has not produced one that can hold territory.
Names and terms the sides do not share. This page keeps them out of its own voice.
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United StatesA country of a hundred and thirty million cannot depend forever on one port in one small neighbour. Ethiopia seeks access to the sea by peaceful agreement and commercial terms. It has lost thousands of soldiers defending Somalia from al-Shabaab and asks for its own needs to be understood.
While governments argue over recognition and ports, al-Shabaab has retaken ground, the African Union force is running out of money, the rains have failed again and millions of Somalis do not have enough to eat. Every foreign quarrel imported into the Horn makes that worse.
A third of them short of food, al-Shabaab still taxing the roads.