DJIBOUTI — China is negotiating a military base in the strategic port of Djibouti, the president said, raising the prospect of US and Chinese bases side by side in the tiny Horn of Africa nation.
“Discussions are ongoing,” President Ismail Omar Guelleh said in an interview in Djibouti, saying Beijing’s presence would be “welcome”.
Djibouti is already home to Camp Lemonnier, the US military headquarters on the continent, used for covert, anti-terror and other operations in Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere across Africa.
France and Japan also have bases in the port, a former French colony that guards the entrance to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, and which has been used by European and other international navies as a base in the fight against piracy from neighbouring Somalia.
China is already financing several major infrastructure projects estimated to total more than $9 billion, including improved ports, airports and railway lines to landlocked Ethiopia, for whom Djibouti is a lifeline port.
Sunay, May 10, 2015