Sudanese, Somali Leadership in Eritrea to Meet With President Afwerki

While aiming to rejoin the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) after withdrawing in 2007, Eritrea has been deepening bilateral cooperation with its neighbors, Sudan and Somalia, who are members of the bloc.

On Monday, Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki hosted General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, Vice Chairman of Sudan’s Sovereign Council, and Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, the Eritrean Ministry of Information says.

Afwerki first received and held talks at the State House in the country's capital, Asmara, with Dagalo in the morning to discuss Sudanese-Eritrean relations. The Eritrean Ministry of Information cited Afwerki as saying that "the problem in Sudan could be only solved by the Sudanese people themselves without interference of foreign actors."

The general's response was not specified by the ministry; however, he congratulated Asmara for seeking to resume its membership in IGAD, currently chaired by Sudan.

Later in the day, Afwerki hosted the Somali head of state who arrived in Asmara on a two-day official visit at the invitation of the Eritrean president.

During Mohamud's visit, the two presidents are going to focus on bilateral relations and regional development, both issues being of interest for both countries, the Ministry of Information emphasized.

In 2007, Eritrea, which was among the founders of IGAD, boycotted the regional bloc made up of countries from the Horn of Africa, the Nile Valley, and the African Great Lakes, citing bias after it was accused of supporting extremist formations in neighboring Somalia.

Despite its exit from IGAD, Eritrea is still moving towards better bilateral relations with other nations, including some of the bloc's countries and also Russia.

For instance, 2022 saw the development of Eritrea's bilateral relations with Somalia. Given that Mogadishu is struggling with the threat of terrorism inside the country, Asmara trains Somali troops in order to help get rid of the problem.

Moreover, President Afwerki accused the US of assisting Tigray rebels during the conflict in Ethiopia. The November 2022 peace agreement between the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) and the Ethiopian federal government was worked out “mainly” by the United States, which rushed to ink the deal in order to save the Tigray People's Liberation Front's from the jaws of total defeat in the conflict that it had initiated in November 2020, he said.

Before that, in January, Eritrea’s Ambassador to Russia Petros Tsegai in an interview with Sputnik, also said Washington’s interference had led to the resumption of the Tigray conflict, since the US backs the Tigray nationalist rebels, so as he said, Washington is not the one who could tell Eritrea to leave Tigray, but only the Ethiopian government.

Eritrea supported Ethiopia in the struggle against the TPLF, which ended with a ceasefire treaty in November 2022 as a result of an African-Union-led peace process.

Along with that, he said France and other Western countries were losing their influence on the continent, adding that the East African nation would continue to cultivate its partnership with Moscow in mineral exploration and oil production regardless of what Western powers think.

"I think Russia will help us look for oil, we are sure that we must have oil, all neighbors have oil. Ethiopia, Sudan. Why wouldn't God give it to Eritrea? [...] We have already mined gold and other minerals. Eritrea is rich in them, and Russia can play a big role in the exploration of these minerals," the diplomat said.

Moreover, during Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's January visit to Eritrea, the East African country's president reportedly said that attempts by the West to create a unipolar world have failed, and called for an effort to combat the hegemonic and colonial practices that had put the world in jeopardy.