WASHINGTON | President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi ("Irro") arrived in Washington on Sept. 5 seeking a deeper relationship with the United States at a time when Somaliland holds more strategic leverage than it has during much of its 35-year campaign for recognition. Much of that leverage rests in Berbera, where Somaliland has spent years developing a deep-water port, an economic zone, and a major airfield into a commercial gateway between the Horn of Africa and global markets.

Conflict around the Red Sea has changed how foreign governments view that same infrastructure. Yemen lies across the Gulf of Aden, the Bab el-Mandeb sits nearby, and foreign powers continue to expand their political and military involvement throughout the region. As those pressures grow, Berbera has become relevant to security planners as well as commercial investors.

A Port Being Read Two Ways

RepubliQ Global's review of the current Washington engagement shows how strongly that security framing has entered the conversation. Mr. Irro is scheduled to speak at the Hudson Institute on Sept. 14 at an event titled "Somaliland as a Strategic Partner in the Horn of Africa." The event places Somaliland within a wider discussion involving the Houthis, China, Russia, and Iran rather than treating the country primarily as a trade and investment opportunity.

That attention offers Somaliland an opportunity to advance a recognition campaign that produced little diplomatic movement for more than three decades. It also raises difficult questions about what Hargeisa should offer in return. Any agreement involving Berbera could remain in force long after the current Red Sea crisis changes, which makes the terms as important as the diplomatic breakthrough Somaliland hopes to secure.

Berbera's commercial development remains unfinished even as its strategic importance grows. A major security partnership could strengthen Somaliland's diplomatic position and bring valuable assistance, but poorly defined terms could also constrain future investment or limit how Somaliland uses the port, airport, and surrounding land.

Djibouti, which handles most of Ethiopia's seaborne trade, sits inside the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, while Jeddah sits farther north in the Red Sea. Berbera sits on the Gulf of Aden side, allowing vessels sailing east toward India or Southeast Asia to continue toward the Indian Ocean without first passing through the strait.

That distinction mattered less when Berbera had limited infrastructure and weak connections to inland markets. Since attacks and shipping disruptions increased across the Red Sea, routes that avoid vulnerable chokepoints have become more valuable. RepubliQ Global's SENTINEL maritime assessments have recorded heavier disruption around several major regional chokepoints while the Berbera corridor remained comparatively less exposed. Although Berbera cannot match Dubai or Djibouti in scale, it can offer traders and shippers another route when dependence on a small number of vulnerable passages becomes costly.

DP World's investment has helped turn that geographic advantage into physical infrastructure. RepubliQ Global's review of the port development shows a modern container terminal with a 17-meter draft and capacity of about 500,000 twenty-foot equivalent units a year. Planned expansion could eventually raise capacity to as much as two million containers annually.

The Berbera Economic Zone adds another layer to the commercial strategy. Developers intend the zone to attract manufacturers, warehouses, logistics companies, and processors across more than 1,200 hectares, leaving considerable space for businesses that could turn the port from a transport asset into a broader commercial center.

Berbera already handles livestock and general cargo, while several sectors remain underdeveloped. Fuel storage and bunkering could serve vessels operating in the Gulf of Aden. Food processors could build on Somaliland's livestock trade, and fisheries could support another export industry as infrastructure improves. Nearby, an unusually long airport runway can accommodate heavy aircraft.

Security Value Is Entering the Conversation

Foreign governments see military value in many of the same features. Berbera faces Yemen and provides access to the Gulf of Aden near the entrance to the Red Sea, while its airport and harbor could support surveillance, logistics, and other security operations without placing those facilities inside the Bab el-Mandeb Strait itself.

As Somaliland seeks stronger international partnerships, its leaders have begun discussing that strategic value more openly. President Irro has expressed willingness to consider future military cooperation, while RepubliQ Global's review of publicly available evidence has not established an American or Israeli military base in Berbera.

Separate source reporting collected by RepubliQ Global indicates possible Israeli and American presence or activity in Somaliland, particularly around Oodweyne and Berbera. RepubliQ Global has not independently established the nature, scale, purpose, or permanence of that reported activity through publicly available evidence and does not treat it as confirmation of an established foreign military base.

Public reporting reviewed by RepubliQ Global also indicates that Israel has provided training to Somaliland's police and military forces. Somaliland's defense ministry has separately denied reports that the two sides were negotiating an Israeli base. Mr. Irro has said Somaliland could consider future military cooperation while maintaining that officials had not discussed a base.

Foreign personnel, security cooperation, intelligence activity, logistical access, and a permanent military installation represent different levels of commitment. Somaliland will need to distinguish among them when it considers what forms of access to negotiate.

Foreign governments now place greater value on Somaliland's coastline, giving Hargeisa a stronger bargaining position than it held only a few years ago.

Somaliland declared the restoration of its independence from Somalia in 1991 and has governed itself separately since. It maintains its own political institutions, security forces, and currency, and competitive elections have produced transfers of power, including the November 2024 election that brought Mr. Irro to office. Those achievements failed to produce formal recognition for decades until Israel recognized Somaliland in December 2025. Somaliland now wants larger powers, particularly the United States, to follow.

The Ethiopia Precedent

Security cooperation gives Hargeisa another way to make its case. A military partnership could bring training, intelligence cooperation, equipment, and revenue while giving a powerful country a direct interest in Somaliland's stability. The potential benefits are substantial, but Somaliland has already seen how quickly the political assumptions behind a strategic bargain can change.

Former President Muse Bihi Abdi signed a memorandum of understanding with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on Jan. 1, 2024, as Ethiopia sought greater access to the sea.

RepubliQ Global's review found that Ethiopia expected long-term access to a stretch of Somaliland's coastline reported at roughly 20 kilometers, with naval and commercial use forming part of the discussions. Ethiopian officials also described an equivalent-value stake in Ethiopian Airlines, while Somaliland officials presented Ethiopian recognition as a central expected return.

The governments never published the full agreement, and some of its terms remained disputed. Ethiopia never recognized Somaliland. Instead, the memorandum triggered a severe diplomatic dispute between Ethiopia and Somalia. By December 2024, Ethiopia and Somalia had entered the Ankara process under Turkish mediation, reaffirming Somalia's sovereignty while opening another path through which Ethiopia could pursue commercial access to the sea.

For Somaliland, the episode offers a useful negotiating lesson since the two sides of the proposed bargain operated on different timelines. Coastal access could have lasted for decades, while recognition depended on a political decision Ethiopia never completed.

Washington presents different circumstances, but the underlying problem remains relevant. Somaliland should not measure the value of long-term access to Berbera only against what a foreign government offers during a period of heightened strategic interest. It also has to weigh what the same port, runway, or coastline may be worth years from now.

Berbera has become more valuable since Somaliland signed the Ethiopia memorandum. Red Sea instability has highlighted its location at the same time that DP World continues to develop its commercial infrastructure.

Djibouti shows that foreign military facilities do not automatically prevent commercial success. Several foreign militaries operate there while its ports continue to dominate Ethiopia's maritime trade. However, Djibouti built much of its commercial system over decades, supported by customs arrangements, freight companies, warehouses, and transport networks that already connect its ports to the Ethiopian market.

Berbera has not reached that stage. Somaliland has built much of the physical infrastructure, but businesses still need to fill the economic zone, expand logistics, and create the services that would turn the port into a larger commercial center.

The Terms of Access

Companies considering projects in Berbera will look beyond cargo volumes and terminal capacity, since security conditions affect long-term investment. Greater risk can increase insurance and financing costs. It can also cause companies to postpone warehouses, processing plants, or other large projects.

Those effects may emerge gradually. Berbera could continue handling ships and cargo while missing out on investments that would have expanded the economy around the port.

The structure of any military agreement will influence that risk. Limited logistics access creates different obligations from a permanent base, while shared use of an airport would differ from transferring control over civilian infrastructure.

Length and scope matter as well. A renewable arrangement gives Somaliland more flexibility than an exclusive lease lasting several decades. Provisions governing land, infrastructure, and termination would also determine how much control Hargeisa retains over the asset.

Somaliland should also weigh whether one security partnership could restrict future relationships with other countries. The Horn of Africa attracts governments whose interests often overlap without fully aligning, and an exclusive commitment to one partner could complicate opportunities that have not yet emerged. The Ethiopia memorandum makes those questions difficult to dismiss as theoretical, given that Somaliland previously contemplated a long-term strategic concession while the expected diplomatic return remained uncertain.

Europe and Commercial Resilience

That calculation extends beyond the United States, Israel, and the Gulf states. Berbera could also become increasingly relevant to European governments and companies seeking greater resilience around the Red Sea corridor.

Europe depends heavily on the Red Sea and Suez route for trade with Asia and the Indian Ocean. When insecurity disrupts the southern entrance at Bab el-Mandeb, shipping companies must absorb greater risk or divert vessels around the Cape of Good Hope, adding time and cost to voyages.

Berbera cannot replace the Suez Canal or Europe's major ports. It could serve a different purpose by providing commercial infrastructure on the open side of Bab el-Mandeb.

The port could support bunkering, warehousing, emergency logistics, regional distribution, and cargo diversion during periods of disruption. A future subsea cable landing in Somaliland could add another form of redundancy, given that much of the communications infrastructure connecting Europe and Asia also runs through the Red Sea corridor.

This gives Somaliland another way to convert its geography into strategic value without relying primarily on military basing. If Hargeisa keeps Berbera commercially open and avoids tying the port too closely to a single security bloc, European companies and governments could eventually view infrastructure in Somaliland as part of a broader resilience strategy for the Red Sea basin.

Europe would not depend on Somaliland for its overall trade, but Berbera could become useful as an additional logistics and maritime-services node when the main corridor faces disruption. Telecommunications infrastructure could eventually add a digital dimension to Berbera's role.

The same geography that attracts American, Israeli, and Gulf security interest could therefore support relationships with European shipping companies, infrastructure investors, telecommunications firms, insurers, and governments seeking greater redundancy around an unstable maritime corridor.

More diversified partnerships at Berbera would also give Somaliland greater diplomatic room. If several commercial and political partners develop an interest in the city's stability, Hargeisa would have less reason to depend heavily on any single security patron.

Somaliland also negotiates from a difficult financial position. Its unresolved political status limits access to many financing mechanisms available to recognized states. RepubliQ Global's research shows that Somaliland lacks the normal sovereign financing relationships, credit architecture, and international borrowing access available to recognized governments.

DP World has proved that major private investment can reach Somaliland, but one investor cannot build the economy around Berbera. The city still needs reliable power, water, roads, telecommunications, and industrial infrastructure. Companies operating in the economic zone will also need credit and access to international banking.

Washington could help address some of those constraints even before formal recognition. A stronger American relationship could improve investor confidence and open new commercial relationships. Recognition could strengthen those effects further by reducing some of the political uncertainty that has kept large investors and financial institutions at a distance.

That possibility also supports engagement on security cooperation rather than rejecting it outright. If Somaliland can secure recognition, investment, stronger financial relationships, and meaningful security assistance in exchange for carefully limited access, an agreement could strengthen rather than weaken Berbera's commercial future.

Recognition would carry enormous political significance, but Somaliland would still need to weigh the duration of any agreement, the amount of land involved, the type of military activity allowed, and the authority it retains over the port and airport.

The 2024 Ethiopia episode showed how quickly diplomacy can shift. At the start of that year, the memorandum appeared to offer Somaliland a possible route toward Ethiopian recognition. By December, Ethiopia had entered a different process with Somalia under Turkish mediation.

A long lease over land or infrastructure would have moved on a far slower timetable. That mismatch deserves attention in Washington. A foreign government may place exceptional value on Berbera during the current Red Sea crisis and assign it less importance once its security priorities change. Somaliland, however, would remain bound by whatever rights it had granted.

China operates a military base in Djibouti, Turkey maintains a large military presence in Somalia, and Gulf governments have invested in ports and security relationships around the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. Israel's recognition of Somaliland has added another strategic relationship to a region already shaped by Houthi activity and wider tensions involving Iran.

Those rivalries will change, but Berbera's geography will continue to shape Somaliland's economic prospects.

Conclusion

DP World continues to develop Berbera as a gateway for trade with East Africa, and the economic zone and corridor toward Ethiopia still have considerable room to grow. Building that commercial economy will take years of investment, so Somaliland does not need to negotiate on the shorter timetable created by a regional security crisis.

President Irro has arrived in Washington with a stronger bargaining position than many of his predecessors held, and the experience of the Ethiopia memorandum gives his government reason to examine closely what it receives before determining what it grants.

Somaliland can use Berbera's strategic importance to advance recognition and deepen relations with the United States while preserving the commercial role that could generate value long after the current security environment changes. Europe also presents another commercial opportunity if Somaliland positions Berbera as infrastructure that strengthens resilience around the Red Sea rather than allowing one security relationship to define the city's future.

The port already operates, but the larger economic project around it remains unfinished. The economic zone still needs companies, the corridor needs more trade, and Somaliland needs infrastructure and financing to turn Berbera into a durable regional business center.

As foreign governments pay greater attention to Berbera's harbor, runway, and coastline for military reasons, Somaliland must weigh that immediate interest against the much longer commercial life of those assets.

Any rights granted over Berbera could outlast the political circumstances that made them valuable to Washington in the first place.