By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Ethiopia’s President Sahle-work Zewde has renewed calls for negotiations, dialogue and other peaceful avenues to bring to an end the country’s nearly two year civil war.
Zewde made the call while addressing the Ethiopian Parliament Monday on the budget for the next fiscal year.
“The government has stated clearly that it will always keep the door open for peace. We continue to urge for negotiations without any conditions, believing that any form of differences may be resolved through discussions,” said Zewde.
She however also stated that at the same time, the Government of Ethiopia will not tolerate any provocation by Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).
President Zewde’s remarks come at a time the long-awaited AU brokered peace talks in South Africa were postponed wihout any new date set.
The meeting between the warring sides in the two-year-old conflict in Tigray would have been the first since a ceasefire broke down in late August.
Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo was to chair the talks. The postponement may have been triggered by the decision by former Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta to question the modalities of engagement since he’s been picked as one of the negotiators.
“This year, we must put all of our efforts to bring the war that has tested our nation to end in peace.”
There are no confirmed figures on how many people the war has left to die of hunger and related illnesses since it started in November of 2020, but some investigations and estimates, one of them from a team of researchers led by Jan Nyssen of Ghent University in Belgium found the toll was likely at least 500,000.
European Union, the United Nations, and the United States have been accusing the Ethiopian government of blocking humanitarian access to Tigray, a claim which has been consistently confirmed by the TPLF team.
The conflict between the TPLF, a political group that has ruled the northern region for decades, and Ethiopian central government forces began in November 2020.
