Once the news emerged Eritrea's President Issayas Afewerki expelled the Chargé d'Affaires of the Sudan Embassy in Asmara to protest against what it sees as Ethiopian meddling and skulduggery with the UAE...

Eritrea's President Issayas Afewerki was likely to fight any reassertion of TPLF authority especially in areas bordering his country and Sudan (AC Vol 63 No 19 Addis and Tigray return to the battlefields)...

As Sudan's war intensifies regional governments are staking out their positions: EritreaPresident Issayas Afewerki told both Gens Hemeti and Burhan that he was not happy about the prospect of an imminent conflict in March last year a month before the fighting broke out...

' The Eritrean organisation was set up in the early 2000s in Addis Ababa but appears to have been sidelined as relations warmed between Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Eritrea's President Issayas Aferwerki in 2017...

To consolidate power in his first year he turned decisively against the formerly dominant Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) allying with Eritrea's autocrat President Issayas Afewerki leading civil war with Tigray from 2020 to 2022 costing over 500 000 lives according to research by Ghent University...

In July 2018 Eritrea's President Issayas Afewerki had said Ethiopia would be able to use Assab port as part of their grand rapprochement...

Hassan Sheikh saw that Djibouti and Eritrea would be natural allies against the Ethiopia-Somaliland deal and quickly arranged meetings with Presidents Ismaïl Omar Guelleh and Issayas Afewerki...

It also reflects the mood after the multiple meetings attended by Burhan in November with regional leaders some of whom he was at loggerheads with: Kenya's William Ruto (14 November); Ethiopia's Abiy Ahmed (on 15 November); Djibouti's Ismaïl Omar Guelleh and Eritrea's Issayas Aferwerki (26 November)...

Emirati interestAbiy may also be doing the bidding of one of his key patrons the United Arab Emirates which previously had a deal with Eritrea's veteran autocrat Issayas Afewerki to run bombing missions into Yemen from Assab...

Djibouti was upset that Abiy was unhappy with the cost of using its port which provides Ethiopia with its current outlet to the sea and Asmara dismissed the speech saying Eritrean sovereignty was not negotiable even though as recently as July 2018 President Issayas Afewerki was saying the opposite promising that Assab once rehabilitated would be back in use for Ethiopia (AC Vol 59 No 5 Any port in a storm)...