Ethiopia needs to smell the coffee before it exports it to the world. Its Prime Minister should move from rhetorical sympathy to official recognition of Somaliland, treating the decision as an Ethiopian national interest rather than a file for Egypt, Turkey, Somalia or an outside broker to clear.
Before the MoU, many of us saw Ethiopia as a regional power acting with strategic confidence. After the Ankara Declaration, a country that should have shaped the Horn appeared to have its foreign policy shaped by others. Is it making a sovereign decision or outsourcing judgement to actors who do not carry its interests, geography or future? The mighty Ethiopia that defeated Italy should not need Egypt and Turkey to explain the Horn of Africa to it.
Geography, trade, security, ports, energy and regional balance all favour a direct partnership with Somaliland, as the original MoU showed. Yet Egypt's Nile politics, Turkey's Somalia policy and Arab capitals' anxieties about the Gulf of Aden keep moving Ethiopia's compass. None of these actors is neutral, and none has a vote in Ethiopia's national interest.
Ankara exposed a habit beyond pausing a dispute. Ethiopia looked like another African state managed by outside sponsors rather than a regional strategic centre. That should trouble every African watching Africans treated as second class stakeholders in their own sea and land. The Horn is an African region, not a diplomatic theatre owned by others.
Somaliland's opponents tell Ethiopia a bedtime story about danger, precedent and legal consequences. Eritrean secession was shaped by Egyptian and Arab hostility to Ethiopia, yet those same external instincts are now offered as reasons to block Somaliland recognition. Others may influence outcomes that weaken Ethiopia through Somalia, Eritrea, Egypt, Turkey or Arab forums, while Ethiopia must hesitate over a decision that strengthens it. That is not strategic memory but strategic amnesia. It is not law. It is pressure dressed in legal language.
Recognition is a political decision made by states, not inherently a legal emergency. Somaliland's state continuity explains its strong legal case without removing the recognising state's political judgement. Israel recognised Somaliland. Where are the legal consequences? Its precedent pierced the fear that recognition automatically produces punishment; Ethiopia need not copy it mechanically to learn from action.
Within the AU, some states support Morocco's Western Sahara position and others the AU position. Morocco, Algeria, South Africa, Kenya and others have not become legal outlaws for choosing different diplomatic positions. Is Ethiopia a lesser country than them? Recognition is not a permission slip issued by the slowest committee in the room.
The Prime Minister has the Israeli precedent, a strong political mandate and visible Ethiopian public support. He must turn those arguments into official policy, building port, security, trade, diplomatic and political arrangements directly with Hargeisa instead of leaving Mogadishu, Cairo or Ankara holding the pen. That partnership would serve Ethiopia's access to the sea, regional weight and political courage.
This would be a pro Ethiopia policy, not an anti Somalia policy. Somaliland is a functioning state; trapping it inside another state's failed claim is duct tape statecraft that weakens everyone. A country with Ethiopia's history should not ask those who fear its rise to certify its interests.
Ethiopia can recognise Somaliland officially, or it can keep exporting coffee while importing foreign policy.