Ethiopian President Taye Atske-Selassie Amde told the United Nations that his country had shown “immense restraint” in the face of foreign interference, hours after renewed fighting in Tigray dealt the most serious blow yet to a four-year-old peace agreement.
Addressing the UN General Assembly in New York on Wednesday, Taye portrayed Ethiopia as a force for regional stability and said Addis Ababa had made progress in relations with neighbouring countries despite what he described as interference by hostile external actors.
“Despite continued interference in our internal affairs by adversarial elements, we have exercised immense restraint,” he said.
“Our message to forces of destruction and mayhem is loud and clear. We urge them to respect the sacred right of the people of the Horn of Africa to live in peace and prosperity.”
His remarks came hours after major fighting erupted between forces from Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region and the federal government, threatening the Pretoria Agreement that ended a devastating civil war in November 2022.
An Ethiopian government official said Tigrayan forces had launched a major offensive against federal troops, while Tigray’s leadership said it had entered a defensive war in response to aggression by the federal government.
The renewed hostilities follow months of rising tensions between Addis Ababa and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, or TPLF, and have raised fears of another large-scale conflict with repercussions across the Horn of Africa.
The escalation came days after the TPLF and six other Ethiopian armed groups announced the formation of the Ethiopian Peoples’ Forces Alliance for Survival, an alliance seeking to remove Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government.
Abiy’s spokesperson, Billene Seyoum, has accused members of the alliance of receiving financial backing from neighbouring Eritrea. Eritrea has repeatedly denied similar accusations.
Taye told the General Assembly that Ethiopia had sought to improve relations across the region and support efforts to end the war in neighbouring Sudan.
A return to full-scale war in Tigray could further destabilise a region already affected by Sudan’s conflict and mounting tensions around the Red Sea.
The previous Tigray war began in November 2020 and resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths before the federal government and TPLF signed the Pretoria peace agreement in November 2022.
