The African Union and the United States said they found a small window of opportunity to end conflicts in Ethiopia on Monday.
The AU envoy for the Horn of Africa, former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, and UN political affairs chief Rosemary DiCarlo sat down with the UN Security Council to brief them on the issue.
“All these leaders, here in Addis Ababa and the north, agree individually that the differences between them are political and require a political solution through dialogue,” said Mr Obasanjo.
He hoped they would be able to configure a program that would grant them humanitarian access and a withdrawal of troops that is satisfactory to all parties involved by the end of the week.
Ethiopia’s UN Ambassador, Taye Atske Selassie Amde, said the route to dialogue and a political solution would not be easy. “For now we’re focused on halting TPLF and rescuing and reaching our public that suffered immensely,” he added.
Previously, the UN warned of the risk of the conflict in Ethiopia spiralling into a nationwide civil war. DiCarlo said it had reached “disastrous proportions”, as approximately 400,000 people in the northern region of Tigray are facing severe hunger, while millions lost their homes in the past year.
The conflict between the Ethiopian government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) started in November 2020. A year later, TPLF is slowly advancing to the country’s capital, Addis Ababa, with its newfound allies. The government has declared a six-month state of emergency in response.
