Regional and international officials say the Asmara regime has been greatly strengthened by Ethiopia s civil war, Thanking Moscow s Eritrean friends for their consistent support of Russian initiatives in the UN, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov sketched out closer ties between the two countries after meeting with President Issayas Afewerki on 26 January at the end of his four-country tour of Africa.
The reluctance of some to negotiate, tricky problems between allies, and arm-twisting from the west make for a complex negotiating picture, The fledgling peace process between the Ethiopian federal government and the Tigrayan People s Liberation Front has evolved from a mere cessation of hostilities agreed in Pretoria on 2 November to ways of keeping that peace on the ground. But Eritrean troops remain in Tigray while President Issayas Afewerki signalled his determination to destroy the TPLF by deploying 20 to 30 divisions there. He has taken no part in a peace process of which he disapproves and unlike the Ethiopian government or the TPLF, is immune to pressures to play ball.
A trio of African politicians have presided over a tentative step towards ending the world’s deadliest conflict, The truce signed between Addis Ababa s federal forces and Tigrayan representatives in Pretoria on 2 November opens the prospect of an end to the fighting and resumption of essential services to northern Ethiopia, but critically it does not in any way constrain Eritrea, whose forces have been playing a leading role in the conflict.
Tigrayan and federal forces are blaming each other for scuppering the truce and they are right – both sides were planning for more fighting, Ahead of the resumption of fighting in early September, both Tigrayan and federal forces had repositioned their troops as tensions rose amid the faltering peace process. This followed a coordinated flurry of peace missions to Ethiopia, a month earlier, by senior officials from the United States, the European Union and the African Union.