Somalia cancels Ethiopia's Red Sea deal with Somaliland

Agreement would have granted Ethiopia access to Gulf of Aden under 50-year lease. Somalia has cancelled a controversial deal between Somaliland, a breakaway region of the country of around 18 million, and landlocked Ethiopia that would have allowed Addis Ababa access to the Red Sea.

When the agreement was signed last week, it provoked fury in Somalia, which does not recognise Somaliland, which separated from the country in 1991 after a bloody insurgency in the 1980s, culminating in full-scale civil war.

Somalia said the deal represented a “blatant disregard for international norms” of its sovereignty and that Somaliland had no right to sign agreements with foreign countries