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ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey aims to meet separately with Somalia and Ethiopia as part of its efforts to resolve a dispute between the sides over a deal that Ethiopia agreed to lease a stretch of coastline from Somaliland, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Thursday.
Turkey has so far hosted two rounds of meetings between the East African neighbours in an attempt to repair their relations. A third round of talks that had initially been set to take place in Ankara on Tuesday was cancelled.
Relations nosedived in January when Ethiopia agreed to lease 20 km (12 miles) of coastline from the breakaway Somaliland region in exchange for recognising its independence. Mogadishu called the agreement illegal and retaliated by expelling the Ethiopian ambassador and threatening to kick out thousands of Ethiopian troops stationed in the country helping battle Islamist insurgents.
Speaking to the state-owned Anadolu news agency, Fidan said Turkey was continuing to engage with Somalia and Ethiopia at the ministerial and head of state level, and added he was hopeful of finding a solution since the parties had "converged to a certain point" as part of the Ankara talks.
"Rather than bringing the same sides here for direct talks - and they don't meet directly anyway, they meet us - we have the aim of establishing one-on-one contact to converge positions and later bring the sides together when their positions reach a totally common point," Fidan said, adding there were "lessons" learned from the first two rounds of talks.
(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu and Ezgi Erkoyun; Editing by Jonathan Spicer and Frances Kerry)
