This is the most significant fighting in northern Ethiopia since the 2022 Pretoria Accord between Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's government and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) Tigray's dominant political force since the 1980s (Dispatches 24/10/22 Federal and Tigrayan leaders open talks in South Africa AC Vol 63 No 22 Addis Ababa and Tigray sign an uneasy truce & Vol 63 No 25 Tentative steps towards peace)...
Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed despite close ties to Israel and the UAE and his campaign for access to the Red Sea has adopted a low-profile approach...
With military victory impossible and political consensus unreachable Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's government is falling back on divide and rule...
DISPATCHES
Relations with Abu Dhabi deteriorated sharply when Hassan Sheikh's team suspected Emirati involvement in 2024 when Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said that he would recognise the territorial sovereignty Somaliland region in exchange for access to a port in the Gulf of Aden...
Abiy Ahmed later backed down following mediation led by Turkey (Dispatches 3/3/25 Abiy and Hassan Sheikh turn down the rancour)...
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DISPATCHES
Growing regional tensions between Ethiopia and Eritrea and Somalia (backed by Egypt and Turkey) are likely to have featured in Wang's meeting with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Foreign Minister Gedion Timothewos according to regional experts...
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The key issue dividing the two blocs is Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's quest for access to the sea; specifically he is targeting Eritrea's port of Assab which he points out was once within the Ethiopian empire...
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While there is regular propaganda from Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's government about reclaiming Assab – a seaport in Eritrea just north of Djibouti that was part of Ethiopia until the former's secession in the early 1990s – Ethiopia lacks the military capacity for escalation...
A ceasefire gives them breathing space and time to train younger recruits from the Sahel and South Sudan while improving logistics by collaborating with Libya's eastern warlord Gen Khalifa Haftar Chadian President Idriss Déby Mahamat ‘Kaka' Central African Republic President Faustin-Archange Touadéra Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and South Sudanese President Salva Kiir...
5 billion from 37 tonnes in the fiscal year ending 7 July Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed told the federal parliament in Addis Ababa...
Vol 66 No 23 |
- ERITREA
- ETHIOPIA
THE FIGHT FOR THE RED SEA: Ethiopia's maritime ambitions clash with Eritrea's hard-fought sovereignty Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has repeatedly insisted that Ethiopia must secure direct access to the Red Sea...
How rival alliances target the Red Sea A central pillar of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's foreign policy is his close relationship with President Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan (MBZ) of the United Arab Emirates...
Egypt has strengthened ties with Eritrea (AC Vol 66 No 15 Former enemies unite to take on Abiy Ahmed)...