Ethiopia Does Not Want War: PM

By Africa News with AFP

Abiy Ahmed

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has said his country does not want war, even as regional Tigray authorities say federal forces are massing around the northern region, raising fears of renewed conflict.

Tigray emerged in 2022 from a two-year war that saw federal forces, backed by militias and the Eritrean army, clash with rebels from the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF).

The TPLF dominated Ethiopian politics for some 30 years before Abiy, a non-Tigrayan, took power in 2018, with the group then marginalised and banned.

At least 600,000 people were killed in the conflict, according to estimates from the African Union.

A ceasefire held for more than two years, but clashes between federal and Tigrayan forces broke out again in November last year and January.

Large numbers of federal troops have for several weeks been massed at the Tigray border, where Tigrayan forces have also deployed.

"On our part, we believe problems should be resolved only through dialogue. We don't want war," Abiy said in an interview broadcast late Thursday by the Ethiopian news agency.

Referring to the TPLF, Abiy -- unusually speaking in Tigrinya, the language spoken in Tigray -- said that some were "obstructing dialogue from taking place" and achieving solutions.

He added that the TPLF "wasn't ready to make even a small compromise".

In an interview given to AFP on Wednesday, the TPLF's second-in-command, Amanuel Assefa, said the "federal government is preparing itself to wage a war against Tigray".

The federal authorities have accused the TPLF of growing closer to neighbouring Eritrea, which maintains fragile relations with Addis Ababa. The group has denied this.

Eritrea accuses its landlocked neighbour of eyeing its port of Assab.

The two countries fought a deadly war from May 1998 to June 2000 for control of several border towns.

In the interview, Abiy also said that Eritrea would "not hesitate to destabilise the country".

"We will not give it a chance to hurt our people once again. If it tries, I believe it will be its last attempt," he said.