Egypt and Eritrea explore possible military deal amid regional tension

Arrangement would include steps to protect Red Sea shipping which has been disrupted by attacks from Iran-backed rebels in Yemen

Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki embrace after signing a peace agreement in 2018. Reuters

Egypt and Eritrea are exploring a possible military co-operation deal and intelligence sharing as they seek to cement already close ties, according to sources.

The sources told The National that such an accord would also include outlining bilateral steps to protect Red Sea shipping, which has been severely disrupted by attacks from Iran-backed rebels in Yemen carried out in solidarity with the Palestinians during Israel's 11-month war in Gaza.

Egypt is also discussing with Eritrea possible mediation by Cairo to end decades-old animosity between Asmara and the ethnic rebels of Tigray in neighbouring Ethiopia, where the Tigray People's Liberation Front poses the most potent threat to the rule of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.

Mr Abiy has been an anathema in Egypt because of what Cairo views as his intransigence in more than a decade of fruitless negotiations to resolve the two nations' dispute over a giant Nile dam that Ethiopia is building, which is seen by Cairo as an existential threat to its life-and-death share of the river's water. Addis Ababa has in turn accused Egypt of supporting anti-government groups to destabilise Ethiopia.

The discussions between Egypt and Eritrea come amid a surprise visit to Asmara last weekend by Egyptian intelligence chief Gen Kamal Abbas, a confidant of President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, and Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty. The pair met Eritrea's longtime leader Isaias Afwerki.

The Foreign Ministry on Saturday said the pair handed the Eritrean leader a message from Mr El Sisi on “bolstering and developing bilateral relations in all fields”.

“They also listened to President Afwerki's views on developments in the Red Sea regarding the importance of finding the right circumstances to restore normal maritime shipping and international trade through the Bab Al Mandeb,” it said, referring to the narrow strait that links the Red and Arabian seas.

The Egyptians also heard the Eritrean leader's views on developments in the Horn of Africa, the challenges faced in that region and methods for reinforcing security and stability there, it said.

Egypt and Eritrea together account for thousands of kilometres of Red Sea coastline, including the Egyptian shores of the gulfs of Suez and Aqaba, as well as 355 islands under Eritrean sovereignty. While Egypt controls the northern reaches of the Red Sea, including the Suez Canal that links to the Mediterranean, Eritrea is located close to the strategic Bab Al Mandeb strait.

The two have forged close ties in the 10 years since Mr El Sisi rose to power in the most populous Arab nation, with Mr Afwerki meeting the Egyptian President several times in recent years. They last met in Cairo in February, only three months after their previous meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

“The primary aim of Egypt in the region is to curb Ethiopian influence in the Horn of Africa and put pressure on Abiy Ahmed’s government,” said one of the sources. “To boost co-operation with Eritrea is a huge step in that direction.”

A military co-operation agreement with Eritrea would be the latest deal of its kind to be struck between Cairo and countries in the Horn of Africa, East Africa or the Nile basin. These include Djibouti, Kenya, Uganda, Sudan and Somalia.

Analysts have long suspected those deals are primarily designed to put pressure on Addis Ababa to show flexibility in its dispute with Egypt over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.

The latest military co-operation agreement between Egypt and its southern neighbours was signed last month with Somalia, which has traditionally been at odds with Ethiopia. Under the provisions of that deal, Egypt late last month airlifted arms, military hardware and troops to Somalia, deeply angering Ethiopia, which has warned that the move would undermine stability in the Horn of Africa and vowed not to stand idly by.

Eritrea, on the other hand, gained its independence from Ethiopia in 1993 after a decades-long civil war. The pair fought a ruinous war over a border dispute between 1998 and 2000; and although they have since made peace and fought together against Ethiopia's Tigrayan rebels in 2020-2022, they remain rivals.

Somalia's quarrel with Addis Ababa now is over a preliminary deal its landlocked neighbour signed this year with the breakaway territory of Somaliland to lease coastal land in exchange for possible recognition of its independence from Somalia.

Somalia called the deal an assault on its sovereignty and said it would block it by all means necessary.

“Somalia and Ethiopia share a long-enduring animosity,” Somalia's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Ali Mohammed Omar told Qatar's Al Jazeera TV network in an interview aired last week.

Asked how Somalia would respond if Ethiopia and Somaliland went ahead and implemented their agreement, he said: “That will be a declaration of war.”

Somalia has already threatened to send home an estimated 10,000 Ethiopian troops in Somalia as part of an African Union-mandated peacekeeping force if the deal is not cancelled.

For its part, Egypt said it planned to apply to the AU to be part of a new peacekeeping force in Somalia which, as the host nation, Somalia must approve.

If this comes to fruition, it could increase tensions. Already, the 17-month-old war in Sudan has driven more than two million people over the borders of that vast Afro-Arab nation. And in Ethiopia, ethnic divides appear to be ominously worsening and Somalia is faced with a constant threat from militant group Al Shabab.