This adds a frisson of drama to the presidential elections due in April in which Ismail Omar Guelleh will stand for a sixth term following last year's constitutional changes which abolished term limits...

President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh rejected this as ‘going far beyond what he could offer' adding that Ethiopia could access a number of ports without taking sovereign control (AC Vol 65 No 16 Djibouti joins fight against the Abiy-Bihi pact)...

Its biggest clash in the Horn of Africa was its dispute with Djibouti's President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh about concessioning rights which have triggered a decade-long legal battle in the British and United States courts (AC Vol 56 No 19 High Court awaits Guelleh)...

Signed on 1 January the MoU has escalated tensions between Djibouti's President Ismail Omar Guelleh and Somaliland as the pact could sink Djibouti's economy...

Presidents Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and Ismaïl Omar Guelleh did not pay attention...

Eventually Ismaïl Omar Guelleh got Muse Bihi to appoint a technical team to discuss with another team in Mogadishu led by Abdikarim Hussein Guled...

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)...