Finally, such slender comfort as this ambiguous result seemed to offer was completely destroyed at the important Addis Ababa summit conference in May. With the long legacy of border incidents and recriminations between Ethiopia and the Republic and tension still continuing, the Somalis at first refused to attend the conference, but later decided to compromise. But there was no concealing the position of isolation into which they had been manœuvred or the icy reception accorded to those passages in the Somali President’s speech which, with more courage than tact, referred to Ethiopia’s part in the division of Somaliland. Ethiopia had scored a notable tactical victory; and with her recent discomfiture on the N.F.D. issue and the concerted rebuttal of her Pan-Somali aspirations, the Republic began to seek a rapprochement with her powerful neighbour despite growing resistance to Ethiopian rule in the Ogaden. How far such a trend could be sustained was difficult to forecast.

I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Som…, loc. 493