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Eritrea’s foreign minister accused the United Arab Emirates of pursuing “port imperialism” across Africa and said Asmara had rejected Emirati attempts to establish a stronger military and commercial presence in the country, according to a Middle East Eye report.
“The UAE has port facilities everywhere in the region, and African countries have to ask why,” Foreign Minister Osman Saleh told MEE. “Is it just for economics? No.”
The UAE’s DP World and AD Ports have stakes in or manage facilities in Egypt, Tanzania, Somaliland and Puntland. Somaliland is a breakaway region of Somalia recognized only by Israel, while Puntland is a semiautonomous Somali region that earlier this year rejected Mogadishu’s decision to cut ties with Abu Dhabi.
The UAE has denied having imperial ambitions in Africa.
The UAE established a military base at Eritrea’s southern port of Assab in 2016 and used it during military operations against the Houthis in Yemen alongside Saudi Arabia.
A senior Eritrean official told MEE that around the same period, Eritrea rejected a UAE request to establish a military base on an island in the Dahlak Archipelago that would have been shared with Israel.
The request came about five years before the UAE and Israel signed the U.S.-backed Abraham Accords.
“We didn’t want DP World (in Eritrea),” Saleh said. “We do not want any foreign power to have a ‘hub’ in Eritrea.”
The UAE has faced resistance elsewhere in the region. Djibouti cancelled a DP World concession in 2018, while Sudan’s government ended a 2022 agreement that would have allowed AD Ports Group to establish a $6 billion port on Sudan’s Red Sea coast.
The UAE supports Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, which is fighting the Sudanese military and has been accused of genocide. Eritrea, meanwhile, has hosted Sudanese army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan twice in the past two months. The Sudanese military is also backed by Egypt, Türkiye and Saudi Arabia.
Eritrean officials also told MEE they see increasing cooperation between the UAE and Israel around Ethiopia.
Eritrea and Ethiopia temporarily repaired relations to fight together during Ethiopia’s 2020-2022 civil war against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, or TPLF. The conflict generated allegations of atrocities and widespread massacres.
Their tactical alliance has since collapsed. Ethiopia has accused Eritrea of supporting TPLF factions, an allegation Asmara denies.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has also raised tensions by asserting a claim to Eritrea’s Red Sea coast. Eritrea says it is open to a commercial arrangement, while Ethiopian statements have at times framed access in broader terms.
Ethiopia has become a close UAE partner in recent years and has deployed Emirati drones and other weapons systems. Ethiopia also hosts the RSF at bases, according to MEE and other media reports.
“The UAE and Israel have already converged on Somaliland,” Saleh said, noting that Somaliland officials have openly expressed interest in an Israeli military presence.
Saleh said Eritrea believes a similar alignment is taking shape around Ethiopia.
“[Abiy Ahmed] has a two-waters strategy like Israel. Only for him it is from the Nile River to the Red Sea,” Saleh said.
Israel and Eritrea established diplomatic relations after Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993.
That year, after President Isaias Afwerki fell into a coma because of cerebral malaria, the U.S. airlifted him to Israel for treatment.
Israel also has a history of ties with Ethiopia. In the late 1970s and late 1980s, it supplied arms to Ethiopia’s Marxist Derg government, which were used against Eritrean fighters.
Relations between Eritrea and Israel have since cooled.
“We have to ask why Israel is running to control the Horn of Africa? Why do they need a base in Somaliland?” Saleh said.
“We decided we didn’t want their embassy here. We are not antagonistic to Israel, but we just decided we didn’t want any relations.”
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