Foreign Minister Abdoulkader Houssein Omar signed agreements on visas, diplomatic training and political consultations with Libya in Tripoli, and discussed Sudan, Somalia and Red Sea security with Egypt's Badr Abdelatty.
Djibouti and Libya signed three memoranda of understanding in Tripoli on Saturday 7 November, the Libyan News Agency LANA reported. They were signed after talks between Djibouti's Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Abdoulkader Houssein Omar, and Libya's acting foreign minister, Taher Baour, in the Government of National Unity.
The first memorandum provides for mutual visa exemption for holders of diplomatic, special and service passports. The second covers cooperation in diplomatic studies and training, and the third establishes regular political consultations between the two foreign ministries. Abdoulkader arrived in Tripoli on Friday for the 22nd ordinary session of the Executive Council of the Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD), LANA said.
Talks with Egypt
On the sidelines of the meeting, Abdoulkader also met Egypt's foreign minister, Badr Abdelatty. According to Egyptian foreign ministry spokesperson Nader Zaki, quoted by SEE News, the two discussed cooperation in energy, logistics, ports, maritime connectivity and infrastructure, as well as trade and Egyptian training programmes. They exchanged views on political and security developments in the Horn of Africa, particularly in Sudan and Somalia. Abdelatty stressed the importance of Red Sea security and freedom of navigation, and called for closer coordination among the states bordering the Red Sea, which he said should have the leading role in its security and governance. The account is Egypt's; CERHA found no Djiboutian readout at the time of writing.
Context
Libyan Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah opened the Executive Council session, attended by the foreign ministers of Egypt, Tunisia, Chad, Djibouti, the Central African Republic, Sierra Leone, Somalia and Guinea-Bissau, Anadolu reported. The 28-member bloc, founded in Tripoli in 1998, is trying to revive its institutions and return its secretariat to the Libyan capital.
Egypt's emphasis on a littoral-states role in the Red Sea comes amid tension with Ethiopia, which is landlocked and is seeking sea access, and as Eritrea accuses Addis Ababa of designs on its coastline. Djibouti, whose port handles most of Ethiopia's trade, hosts several foreign military bases and has been holding security talks with the European Union and France in recent weeks. A visit by China's special representative on African affairs, Liu Xianfa, who has included Djibouti on his current regional tour, had not been reported as having taken place at the time of writing.
Image: Abdoulkader Houssein Omar, Djibouti's foreign minister, in an official portrait uploaded by him in 2021, when he was an ambassador. Abdoulkader Houssein Omar, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.