Ethiopia claims Eritrea is readying to ‘wage war’ against it

Ethiopia has accused Eritrea’s government of working with an opposition group based in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region to prepare for a military offensive, underscoring concerns of renewed conflict in the region.

Ethiopia’s Foreign Minister Gedion Timothewos made the claim in a letter appealing to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, cited by the AFP news agency and Ethiopian media on Wednesday.

In the letter, Timothewos claims there is clear “collusion” between Eritrea’s government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), a once-dominant political force in Ethiopia that fought a two-year civil war with Addis Ababa, ending in 2022.

“The collusion between the Eritrean government and the TPLF has become more evident over the past few months,” said the letter, quoted by AFP. “The hardliner faction of the TPLF and the Eritrean government are actively preparing to wage war against Ethiopia.”

In the letter, Addis Ababa also accuses Asmara and the TPLF of “funding, mobilising and directing armed groups” in the northern Amhara region, where the federal army has been facing rebels for several years.

The message speaks to deteriorating relations between neighbouring Ethiopia and Eritrea, which have a decades-long bloody history.

After Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993, a border war erupted between the two Horn of Africa countries from 1998 to 2000, leaving tens of thousands dead.

Relations thawed in 2018 after Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power, with the Eritrean army supporting Ethiopian federal forces in the 2020-2022 Tigray War.

Since the conflict ended, relations have again taken a belligerent turn, with Asmara accusing its landlocked neighbour of eyeing the Assab port on the Red Sea in southeastern Eritrea.

Abiy has repeatedly expressed hopes for Ethiopia to regain sea access, lost legally after Eritrea’s independence.

Timothewos, in his letter to Guterres, said Addis Ababa wants “to engage in good faith negotiations with the government of Eritrea” and has a vision of “shared prosperity through integration that preserves the territorial integrity and sovereignty of both states”.

He accused Asmara of trying “to justify its sinister machinations against Ethiopia by claiming that it feels threatened by Ethiopia’s quest to gain access to the sea”.