UAE sought a shared Eritrean island base for Israel as early as 2016. Asmara sees closer Israel-UAE alignment on Ethiopia
The UAE is pursuing “port imperialism” across Africa, the foreign minister of Eritrea told Middle East Eye in an exclusive interview from Asmara.
“The UAE has port facilities everywhere in the region, and African countries have to ask why,” Eritrean Foreign Minister Osman Saleh told MEE. “Is it just for economics? No.”
The UAE’s two port groups, DP World and AD Ports, have stakes in or manage facilities in Egypt; Tanzania; Somaliland, a breakaway republic of Somalia recognised only by Israel; and Puntland, a semiautonomous region in Somalia that earlier this year defied Mogadishu’s decision to cut ties with Abu Dhabi.
While some have welcomed the UAE’s investments, Abu Dhabi’s bid to establish port stakes along East Africa’s coast has not been smooth sailing with others.
Djibouti cancelled a DP World concession in 2018.
Sudan's government called off a 2022 agreement that would have seen AD Ports Group establish a $6bn port on Sudan’s Red Sea coast. The UAE supports the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary accused of genocide, fighting against Sudan’s military.
The UAE has officially denied having imperial ambitions in Africa, but the oscillating ties between Eritrea and the UAE offer a case in point on the wariness regional countries have towards the UAE.
Why Eritrea rejected UAE port role
Asmara is Eritrea's capital, a strategic Red Sea littoral state with over 700 miles of coastline. The city sits in Eritrea’s highlands, almost 8,000 feet above sea level, and is famed for its Italian colonial-era architecture and bicyclists.
MEE visited Asmara to speak with Saleh and other senior Eritrean officials who have the ear of President Isaias Afwerki, who has ruled Eritrea since it gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993.
The UAE established a military base in Eritrea’s southern port of Assab in 2016, which it used to wage war on the Houthis in neighbouring Yemen alongside Saudi Arabia. But ties between the UAE and Eritrea soured in the years after the UAE arrived.
Eritrea’s independence fighters historically enjoyed good ties with Zayed bin Sultan, the founder of the UAE, who developed the seven emirates after independence from Britain in 1971. But Eritrea’s leadership didn’t see eye to eye with his son, Mohamed bin Zayed, the UAE’s current president.
A senior Eritrean official told MEE that Eritrea rejected a request from the UAE around 2016 to establish a military base on one of the islands in the Dahlak Archipelago that would have been shared between the UAE and Israel, roughly five years before the two signed the US-backed Abraham Accords, making their close ties public.
While the UAE’s port stake in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, is commercial, others, like in Somaliland’s port of Berbera, have come alongside an extensive military footprint.
“We didn’t want DP World [in Eritrea],” Saleh told MEE. “We do not want any foreign power to have a ‘hub’ in Eritrea.”
Eritrea is at loggerheads with the UAE in several theatres across the region.
Eritrea sees closer Israel-UAE alignment on Ethiopia
The UAE backs the RSF in Sudan, while Eritrea has hosted Sudanese army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan twice in the last two months. The Sudanese army is also backed by Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
Ethiopia and Eritrea patched up their fraught ties temporarily to fight together in the former's 2020-2022 civil war, where they joined forces against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the ruling party in Ethiopia's state of Tigray. That war sparked allegations of atrocities and widespread massacres.
Eritrea and Ethiopia's tactical alliance has since broken down, and the two are at daggers drawn. Ethiopia has accused Eritrea of supporting TPLF factions, which Eritrea denies.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has spiked tensions by staking a claim to Eritrea's Red Sea coast. While Eritrea says it is open to a commercial arrangement, Ethiopia has often framed its claims in revisionist terms.
In recent years, Ethiopia has emerged as a key UAE ally. Ahmed has a close relationship with the UAE's ruler, and Addis Ababa has deployed Emirati drones and other weapons systems. Ethiopia also hosts the RSF at bases, MEE and other media outlets have reported.
In Asmara, Eritrean officials see increasing cooperation between the UAE and Israel in Addis Ababa.
Israel has a historical precedent for supporting Ethiopia. In the late 1970s and late 1980s, Israel provided arms to Ethiopia's Marxist Derg government, which were used against Eritrean fighters.
"The UAE and Israel have already converged on Somaliland," Saleh told MEE, referring to the breakaway Republic where Somaliland officials have openly told MEE they want an Israeli military presence.
"[Abiy Ahmed] has a two-waters strategy like Israel. Only for him it is from the Nile River to the Red Sea," he said, referring to an Israeli expansionist vision that stretches from the Gaza Strip to the River Jordan at the frontier of the occupied West Bank.
Israel and Eritrea established diplomatic ties after the latter's independence. In 1993, when Afwerki fell into a coma because of cerebral malaria, the US airlifted him to Israel for treatment.
But in recent years, Eritrean and Israeli ties have grown cold.
"We have to ask why Israel is running to control the Horn of Africa? Why do they need a base in Somaliland?" Saleh said.
Saleh said Asmara sees Israel and the UAE coalescing around Ethiopia. "They already converge on Somaliland," he told MEE.
"We decided we didn't want their (Israeli) embassy here. We are not antagonistic to Israel, but we just decided we didn't want any relations."
