Ethiopia.. Abiy Ahmed makes new statements regarding access to the sea

- Ethiopian Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, said that the issue of access to the sea is “existential” for his country, in light of Addis Ababa’s efforts to ensure access to an outlet on the Red Sea in light of it being a landlocked country since Eritrea’s secession from it in the 1990s. On Saturday, the official Ethiopian Fana news agency reported the Prime Minister saying that Ethiopia's "long-term security, sovereignty, and prospects for its future generations are linked to finding reliable outlets to global markets."

He continued: "Planning for the future of a country with a population exceeding 130 million people, with all its routes to global markets passing through other countries, requires dealing with access to the sea as an issue related to national security and sovereign interests." Abiy Ahmed stressed that his country will continue “to seek to achieve this goal through dialogue and achieving mutual interests, within the framework of a long-term national priority that requires communication and understanding with the parties concerned.”

On October 4, the Egyptian city of El Alamein witnessed the issuance of a joint declaration by Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, and Somalia that addressed the issues of crises in Sudan, navigation in the Red Sea, and the unity of Somalia, in addition to the water uses of rivers, especially the Nile River. In light of the Ethiopian-Eritrean tensions, the United States called on both parties earlier this month to exercise restraint, warning that these tensions may affect the entire region.