A regional power

Ethiopia’s chief political advisor to the foreign ministry, Kinfe Abraham, said that Ethiopia had emerged as a defining power in the Horn of Africa region. In a BBC interview, Kinfe said Ethiopia held a responsibility to help maintain peace in the sub-region, and had a “track record of not being aggressive, but responding decisively”. He compared Ethiopia’s “super power” position in the region to that of Egypt in North Africa and Nigeria in West Africa. Asked to comment on Ethiopia’s “tense” relationship with neighbouring Somalia, he said the Djibouti-hosted Somali peace talks were originally an Ethiopian initiative and that his government was “very keen on finding a resolution”. He said an anarchic Somalia was detrimental to Ethiopia because the various Somali factions operated in their own enclaves with “different interests”. He acknowledged that Ethiopia had been “conducting lightening (cross-border military) operations” in Somalia, but blamed the country’s northern neighbour, Eritrea, for supporting Mogadishu-based faction leader Hussein Mohamed Aideed. Ethiopia has been accused of giving military support to factions in southern Somalia in a proxy war. Since the Somali government collapsed in 1991, Ethiopia has launched a number of military operations across the southern Somalia border, which it has said were necessary to contain Islamic fundamentalist groups. Ethiopia and Eritrea signed a ceasefire on 18 June after a devastating two year border war, in which Ethiopia claimed a decisive victory.