Yesterday, the official Ethiopian media reported that the parliament voted to declassify the Tigray Liberation Front as a terrorist group. And this is against the backdrop of a peace agreement between Addis Ababa and the Front, in South Africa, signed in November 2022 under the auspices of the African Union. Tigray is on the list of terrorists.
The day before yesterday, Ethiopia expressed its rejection of the US State Department’s statement about “serious crimes” committed during the conflict between the Ethiopian government and the armed movements in northern Ethiopia.
In November 2020, an armed conflict broke out in the northern part of Tigray, which spread to neighboring regions; And so it continued until the conflicting parties reached a peace agreement in November 2022.
The Ethiopian Foreign Ministry said in a statement: “The US State Department issued a statement saying that certain serious crimes were committed during the conflict in northern Ethiopia.
And given the report on the joint investigation of the Ethiopian Commission on Human Rights and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, it turns out that the (American) statement did not bring anything new.
The Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs added: “The Ethiopian government does not accept the overarching condemnation contained in the statement; He sees no point in such a one-sided and hostile approach.
Last month, Eritrean President Isaias Afwerk accused the United States of being involved in fueling Ethiopia’s internal conflict. Criticize Washington’s policy of controlling the world and its attempts to stick to unipolarity. According to the Ethiopian website Al-Rased Center, citing Eritrean television, Afverki blamed Washington for unleashing a civil war in Ethiopia.
He said: “The United States is behind the war that broke out between the Tigray Liberation Front and the Ethiopian government in November 2020.”
Afverki added: “The peaceful developments witnessed by Ethiopia and Eritrea in 2018, which inspired hope and optimism in the region and beyond, have worried the United States, which has pushed the Tigray Liberation Front into unprecedented recklessness.
