Source: Office of the Prime Minister – Ethiopia Live Stream
3 June 2021
[At approximately 27 minutes into the press conference]
Ethiopian Government Spokeswoman: “With regards to the withdrawal of Eritrean forces: a request for the withdrawal of Eritrean forces has been put in place by the relevant authority and per the ministry of defence reports, withdrawal has commenced, so we need to let that process play out according to the agreements with the stakeholders.” [highlight added]
“While hostilities have largely ceased in boundary areas with Eritrea, from North-Western to Eastern Zones, since March, access to these areas is often denied.”
Source: OCHA
Ethiopia
OCHA says that the overall security situation in Tigray region remains highly complex and fluid. Ongoing active hostilities are highly mobile, mostly in rural areas, hindering planning and expanding humanitarian operations. While hostilities have largely ceased in boundary areas with Eritrea, from North-Western to Eastern Zones, since March, access to these areas is often denied.
Violence and attacks against civilians, including humanitarian workers, continue. Last Friday, a humanitarian worker working with an international non-governmental organization was killed in a cross-fire during an attack outside the Government building in Adigrat Town, Eastern Zone. Since the start of the conflict, nine aid workers have been killed in Tigray, all Ethiopian nationals.
Levels of food insecurity and malnutrition remain alarming. Twenty-one per cent of more than 21,000 children under age 5 screened for malnutrition last week were identified with severe wasting, alarmingly above the emergency 15 per cent threshold set by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Health facilities continue to receive and treat survivors of gender-based violence throughout the region, with 1,288 official cases reported between February and April. The reported numbers greatly underestimate the actual cases, as underreporting is widespread.
From 27 March to 31 May, UN agencies and partners reached more than 2.8 million people out of the targeted 5.2 million people with food assistance. To date, about 430,000 people, which is only 15 per cent of the targeted 3 million people, have been reached with emergency shelter and non-food items.
Humanitarian partners are gradually scaling up the response, but not yet keeping pace with the mounting needs, due to a combination of access constraints, insufficient communications capacity, bureaucratic impediments, and lack of funding.
Source: UN
The annual report from the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Eritrea, Mohamed Abdelsalam Babiker, makes sobering reading.
It should be read in full and can be found here.
These are some highlights:
News and Press Release Source
Posted 1 Jun 2021 Originally published 1 Jun 2021 Origin View original
WFP food distribution in Tigray region © WFP/ Photogallery
MEKELE – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has provided emergency food assistance to 1 million people since starting distributions in Northwestern and Southern zones of Tigray region in March. Aster Beyene, a 43-year-old mother of seven, who lost both her home and crops two months ago to conflict, became the 1 millionth person to collect wheat, split peas and vegetable oil from WFP on Monday.
“Up until now I have relied on what little food I can get from my neighbours. At least now we have some relief from the hunger we have been suffering,” said Aster from Adi Millen, a remote rural village 50 kilometres from Shire in Northwestern zone. WFP provided food to the 4,500 villagers, bringing the first round of food distributions – which will be carried out every six weeks in Tigray - to a close.
“I am glad that WFP was able to bring the food to us here in Adi Millen, where we are far and cut off from many towns and markets,” Aster added.
WFP is responsible for emergency food assistance across Northwestern and Southern zones of Tigray and will scale-up operations to reach 2.1 million people in need of food assistance across these operational areas. Since April, it has managed to access all 13 woredas (districts) of Northwestern and assisted 885,000 people. In addition, WFP distributions began at the end of March in three woredas of Southern zone where 168,000 people have so far received WFP emergency food, bringing the total to 1.05 million people. In March, before WFP was assigned Northwestern and Southern zones, WFP had assisted 33,000 people in Eastern zone. This week, WFP kicked off a second six-week round of emergency food assistance, starting in Korem and Ofla, two of five new woredas in Southern zone recently added to WFP’s operational areas. Within the first few days of operations, WFP expects to assist about 80,000 people of the nearly 200,000 target population. In addition, WFP leads the emergency nutrition response across all Tigray with partners and is scaling up to reach people in as many as 70 woredas. Access, especially in rural areas, remains the primary challenge. WFP has delivered 315,000 emergency nutrition rations to children and women since February in 31 woredas. In May, WFP reached almost 100,000 children and pregnant or nursing women in all zones except for Western. As well as supporting the overall response, WFP has delivered 40,000 metric tons of food for the Government and partners to Tigray and has transported 22,000 metric tons for National Disaster Risk Management Commission (NDRMC) within the region. A total of 5.2 million people, 91 percent of Tigray’s population, need emergency food assistance due to conflict since last November. Ahead of the results of a new Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) study of levels of hunger across Tigray, WFP is highly concerned at the number of people we see in need of nutrition support and emergency food assistance and is doing all it can to reach 2.1 million people in need in the coming months. However, WFP needs US$203 million to continue to scale up its response in Tigray to save lives and livelihoods through to the end of the year.
Contact
For more information please contact (email address: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.):
Claire Nevill, WFP/Addis Ababa, Mob. +251 094 433 4949 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Peter Smerdon, WFP/Nairobi, Mob. +254 707 722 104, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Tomson Phiri, WFP/ Geneva, Mob. +41 79 842 8057
Frances Kennedy, WFP/ Rome, Mob. +39 346 7600 806
Jane Howard, WFP/ London, Mob. +44 (0)796 8008 474
Shaza Moghraby, WFP/New York, Mob. + 1 929 289 9867
Steve Taravella, WFP/ Washington, Mob. +1 202 770 5993
BRIEFING ROOM
MAY 26, 2021 • STATEMENTS AND RELEASES
I am deeply concerned by the escalating violence and the hardening of regional and ethnic divisions in multiple parts of Ethiopia. The large-scale human rights abuses taking place in Tigray, including widespread sexual violence, are unacceptable and must end. Families of every background and ethnic heritage deserve to live in peace and security in their country. Political wounds cannot be healed through force of arms. Belligerents in the Tigray region should declare and adhere to a ceasefire, and Eritrean and Amhara forces should withdraw. Earlier this week, the UN Office of Humanitarian Affairs warned that Ethiopia could experience its first famine since the 1980s because of this protracted conflict. All parties, in particular the Ethiopian and Eritrean forces, must allow immediate, unimpeded humanitarian access to the region in order to prevent widespread famine.
The United States urges Ethiopia’s leaders and institutions to promote reconciliation, human rights, and respect for pluralism. Doing so will preserve the unity and territorial integrity of the state, and ensure the protection of the Ethiopian people and the delivery of urgently needed assistance. The Government of Ethiopia and other stakeholders across the political spectrum should commit to an inclusive dialogue. Working together, the people of Ethiopia can build a shared vision for the country’s political future and lay the foundation for sustainable and equitable economic growth and prosperity.
The United States is committed to helping Ethiopia address these challenges, building on the longstanding ties between our two nations and working with the African Union, United Nations, and other international partners. U.S. Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa Jeff Feltman is leading a renewed U.S. diplomatic effort to help peacefully resolve the interlinked conflicts across the region, including a resolution of the dispute over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam that meets the needs of all parties. Special Envoy Feltman will return to the region next week and keep me apprised of his progress. America’s diplomacy will reflect our values: defending freedom, upholding universal rights, respecting the rule of law, and treating every person with dignity.
###
Source=Statement by President Joe Biden on the Crisis in Ethiopia | The White House
Source: CNN
[Full text below]
The US Senate has unanimously passed a resolution calling for the immediate withdrawal of Eritrean troops from Ethiopia’s war-torn northern Tigray region, after a CNN investigation revealed that the soldiers were cutting off critical aid routes.
The resolution, sponsored by Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman James E. Risch and passed by the Senate on Thursday, called on Eritrea to “immediately and fully withdraw its military forces from Ethiopia” and condemned human rights violations committed by the Eritrean military.
It also urged US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to ensure that a “full, independent, international investigation into all reports of human rights violations, abuses, and atrocities” committed in the course of the conflict is carried out and that those responsible be held accountable. Blinken called for such a probe on February 27, a day after investigations by CNN and Amnesty International into two separate massacres.
Thousands of civilians are believed to have been killed in Tigray since November, when Abiy launched a major military operation against the region’s ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), sending in national troops and fighters from Ethiopia’s Amhara region.
CNN has previously reported that soldiers from neighboring Eritrea had crossed into Tigray and perpetrated extrajudicial killings, massacres, sexual violence and other human rights abuses.
The renewed drive for action by US lawmakers was prompted by CNN’s investigation, which revealed Eritrean soldiers were manning checkpoints in Tigray, obstructing and occupying key humanitarian aid routes, roaming the halls of one of the region’s few operating hospitals and threatening medical staff.
On May 12, Von Batten-Montague-York, the Washington, DC-based advocacy group that led the push for the resolution, said on Twitter that CNN’s report “confirms what we have briefed members of Congress: War crimes are being committed against civilians in Tigray.”
“We are doubling our push for passage of S.Res.97 and sanctions against Ethiopian and Eritrean officials guilty of crimes against civilians in Tigray,” the group added.
Despite pressure from the US, there has been no sign that Eritrean forces plan to exit the border region anytime soon.
The Senate on Thursday called on the Biden administration to “conduct and impose strict accountability measures on those found responsible” of human rights violations, opening the door for potential US sanctions.
Rep. Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Rep. Gregory Meeks, the New York Democrat who chairs the committee, have been leading a continued push for the Biden administration to “urgently use all available tools, including sanctions and other restrictive measures, to hold all perpetrators accountable and bring an end to this conflict.”
McCaul told CNN on Thursday that “there have been ample, credible reports from human rights groups and journalists on the continuing presence of Eritrean troops, and reports that have implicated them, and other armed actors, in human rights abuses, rape and other atrocities.
“It is clear that the Government of Ethiopia and the Government of Eritrea have not upheld their public commitment to withdraw Eritrean forces out of Tigray. Now we have this on-camera evidence from CNN.”
He argued that the “Biden administration needs to take action now to demonstrate we are serious when we demand accountability for atrocities.”
That the Senate—
(1) calls for the immediate cessation of hostilities in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia;
(2) condemns in the strongest terms all violence against civilians;
(3) calls on the Government of Eritrea to immediately and fully withdraw its military forces from Ethiopia, and condemns in the strongest terms any human rights violations, murder, looting, rape, and other crimes committed by the Eritrean military or any other forces in the Tigray Region or elsewhere in Ethiopia;
(4) strongly disapproves of the escalation of political tensions between the Government of Ethiopia and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) into armed conflict;
(5) calls for the swift and complete restoration of electricity, banking, telephone, and internet services throughout the Tigray Region and other parts of Ethiopia where communications have been restricted;
(6) appreciates the willingness of Sudan to welcome refugees fleeing the conflict in the Tigray Region;
(7) urges the Government of Ethiopia to—
(A) take tangible steps toward improving humanitarian access in keeping with commitments made to the United Nations World Food Programme and Secretary of State Antony Blinken;
(B) pursue accountability for human rights abuses and atrocities; and
(C) make progress on other key issues with regard to the conflict in the Tigray Region and threats to regional stability following the visit of Senator Coons;
(8) calls on the Government of Ethiopia to—
(A) ensure that any apprehensions of TPLF members are carried out with the least possible use of force and that the rights to which those detained are entitled under Ethiopian and international law are fully respected;
(B) require the immediate and full withdrawal of Eritrean forces from Ethiopia;
(C) release all opposition leaders, supporters, and activists detained on the basis of their political activity and views as well as journalists detained on the basis of their reporting, and respect the rights of all Ethiopians to free expression and political participation, without discrimination based on ethnicity, ideology, or political affiliation; and
(D) convene a credible and countrywide process of national dialogue and reconciliation inclusive of all nonviolent political parties, ethnic communities, religious groups, and civil society organizations in Ethiopia to work toward the sustainable resolution of grievances and chart a democratic and peaceful path forward for the country;
(9) urges all parties to the conflict to—
(A) cease all hostilities, commit to a political solution for resolving existing differences, fully comply with international humanitarian law, and refrain from actions that could continue, spread, or escalate the conflict, particularly attacks on civilian targets;
(B) make demonstrable progress to guarantee unfettered and immediate humanitarian access, for personnel and supplies, to areas affected by the conflict, and take all possible steps to protect the safety of civilians, including refugees, displaced persons, and humanitarian aid workers; and
(C) allow for, and cooperate with, independent and transparent investigations of any alleged human rights abuses committed in the course of the conflict in the Tigray Region and other conflicts across Ethiopia, and hold perpetrators to account in a credible process; and
(10) urges the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, and the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, in coordination with the heads of other relevant Federal departments and agencies, to—
(A) engage at the highest levels with leaders of the Government of Ethiopia, the Government of Eritrea, and the TPLF to encourage the full cessation of hostilities and the withdrawal of Eritrean forces, mitigate the humanitarian crisis that has emerged from the conflict, and support an inclusive process of national dialogue and reconciliation;
(B) immediately establish criteria to end the pause of all non-life-sustaining assistance to Ethiopia and support programming to meet immediate humanitarian needs, including of refugees and internally displaced persons, advance nonviolent conflict resolution and reconciliation throughout the country, and aid a democratic transition in Ethiopia;
(C) take continued actions to ensure that a “full, independent, international investigation into all reports of human rights violations, abuses, and atrocities” committed in the course of the conflict as called for by Secretary of State Blinken on February 27, 2021, is conducted, and impose strict accountability measures on those found responsible;
(D) use all diplomatic, developmental, and legal tools to prevent further ethnic-based violence and mass atrocities, including by non-state armed groups, and promote competitive multi-party democracy in Ethiopia; and
(E) maintain close coordination with international allies and multilateral organizations regarding efforts to address the conflict in the Tigray Region and other regions of Ethiopia and bring attention to the conflict in international fora, including the United Nations Security Council.
Amend the title so as to read: “A resolution calling on the Government of Ethiopia, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, and other belligerents in the conflict in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia to cease all hostilities, protect human rights, allow unfettered humanitarian access, and cooperate with independent investigations of credible atrocity allegations.”.
Source: US State Department Briefing
Introduction by Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield
[Note: below is an extract of what she had to say]
Before I served in my current role as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, I spent most of my career working on the African continent, and I first visited Africa, I’m almost embarrassed to say, over 43 years ago. I fell in love with the continent, with the people, as you know, with the food and with the culture. And Africa is very much in my heart. It was an emotional experience for me 43 years ago, and it continues to be emotional for me today. I knew my ancestors came from this large and beautiful and diverse continent, and so I felt very, very proud at that moment to be on the continent. And I feel very proud to be working on issues related to the continent now.
Since then, my experiences working in Liberia and Kenya and Rwanda and Nigeria and the Gambia, and virtually every other corner of the continent, have deeply shaped who I am. So if there’s one message I’d love for you to deliver back home today, it’s that I miss you.
Moderator: Thank you. The next question, we will go to Ethiopia, a question from Tsedale Lemma of the Addis Standard out of Ethiopia. She writes, “Ethiopia is undergoing a tragic episode of manmade political violence, including a devastating civil war in Tigray that has now left more than 5 million people facing a potential famine in the coming months. As actively engages as the Biden administration seems to have been initially, its first five months in office did not bring anything concrete by way of leveraging its diplomacy to stop Ethiopia’s descent into complete chaos. Is it time for Ethiopians to give up expecting anything from the Biden administration?”
Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield: Thank you. And that is an extraordinarily important question and I hope that that is not where Ethiopians are going. The Biden administration has been engaged with Ethiopia from day one. You can go back and look at the kinds of statements that were even made prior to the administration taking over on January 20th. President Biden sent his own emissary to Ethiopia; Senator Coons went out to meet with and try to engage with the government on this situation. Jeff Feltman has just completed a visit to Ethiopia, and I have been actively engaged on this issue here in New York, insisting that it be put on the agenda of the Security Council and successfully getting a statement out of the Security Council. I will continue to engage on those issues here in New York, but our administration has also made clear its engagement on this.
We have raised our grave concerns over the reports of human rights violations, the abuses, the atrocities that have taken place in Tigray, and we condemn them in the strongest terms, and you have seen all of those messages come out. And we will continue to address this. We’ve called on the Eritrean Government to remove its forces from Tigray. Jeff Feltman went to Eritrea as well and engaged with the president there. And we, again, have repeatedly engaged the Ethiopian Government at the highest levels.
So in the past five months, we have been proactively engaged on this issue and I would hope that the Ethiopian Government and the Ethiopian people are conscious of what we are doing, and continue to work with us to try to find a solution to this situation.
Moderator: Staying along those same lines of Ethiopia, Brook Abdu from The Reporter newspaper writes in our Q&A, “Is the Tigray crisis on the agenda for tomorrow’s [Wednesday 19 May] UN Security Council meeting? What do you think of the Horn of Africa security dynamics as a whole?”
Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield: It’s not on the agenda for the Security Council meeting tomorrow, but at any point we can have this issue on the agenda, either having it come to us through the UN or having it added to the agenda by one of the members, but we are engaged and continue to engage with member states, with the African – the A3+1 members of the Security Council, with the P5, as well as with other member states of the UN on this issue.
Source: Human Rights Concern – Eritrea
17 May 2021
The Eritrean regime announced on 13th May 2021 that “His Reverend Abune Qerlos has been elected as 5th Patriarch of Eritrea’s Orthodox Tewahdo Church in an election conducted today in Asmara… The official consecration of Abune Qerlos will take place on June 13th.”
The announcement justified this event with the information that “Representatives of monasteries, dioceses… and departments of the Holy Synod as well as representatives of Theological Colleges and …representatives of dioceses from abroad participated in the electoral process.” The regime further claimed that the election was “in accordance with the norms and regulations of the Holy Synod and the Eritrean Orthodox Tewadho Church”.
What was not made clear was that the current third Patriarch of Eritrea is still alive, and church statutes do not authorise the election of a new Patriarch while the existing one is alive. The current Patriarch, Abune Antonios has been under house arrest for over 15 years. His detention is illegal, as he has never been charged with any offence or tried for it. His deposition and the substitution of another member of the clergy is also illegal under the Orthodox Church statutes, which do not give the political authorities any legal role in such appointments.
The arrest and deposition of the legitimate patriarch, Abune Antonios, is part of an attempt by the Eritrean regime to control every religious group and to determine externally all decisions of the Orthodox Church. Because Abune Antonios would not prioritise political authority above obedience to God, he became unacceptable to the Eritrean regime, and was in effect deposed from his supreme role as patriarch. On January 20, 2006, authorities notified Patriarch Antonios he would be removed from his position and placed him under house arrest. On January 20, 2007, authorities confiscated Patriarch Antonios’ personal pontifical insignia, and in May that year forcefully removed him from his home and detained him at an undisclosed location. Thus, legally elected Patriarch of the Eritrean Orthodox Church has been cut off from communicating with his church by physical imprisonment.
The actions of the Eritrean regime in its attempts to remove the Patriarch was not widely accepted within his church, but protesting against this state interference is highly dangerous for clergy. Indeed, the 2016 Report of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in Eritrea states that at that time “over ten Orthodox Priests were detained” for protesting against the continued detention of Abune Antonios as well as the regime’s plans to appoint a new Patriarch.
Human Rights Concern – Eritrea condemns the decision by the Eritrean regime to replace the legitimate Patriarch of the Eritrean Orthodox Church with someone more acceptable to them, who will obey government dictates without question. This has all the marks of state interference in matters reserved to the church. The claim that the new appointee, Abune Querlos, has been elected in accordance with all the norms and regulations of the church is entirely spurious and false, since no election of a new patriarch can occur legally whilst the present one is still alive. This so-called election must not be recognised by other churches or official state pronouncements. It is important that all diplomatic and religious authorities, the United Nations and other international bodies, as well as all human rights organizations, do not give credence to this misleading announcement, or recognition to the new state appointee.
—-
Human Rights Concern – Eritrea (HRCE
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
+44 7958 005 637
On Monday the US Senate Foreign Affairs Committee will hold a closed meeting to hear a report-back from President Biden’s Horn of Africa Special Envoy, Jeffrey Feltman and other top officials.
The session is entitled: “Challenges and Opportunities for the United States in the Horn of Africa.”
Since it will be a closed meeting we will only learn what is being proposed from briefings after the event, but there are already some pointers.
First: Feltman has just come to the end of a long tour of the region. He travelled to Egypt, Eritrea, Sudan, and Ethiopia from May 4 to 13, 2021.
His public objectives were spelled out and can be seen in full below. Essentially, he was aiming to solve the war in Tigray, keep the Sudanese democracy programme on track, end the dispute between Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt over the Nile as well as solve the Ethiopia-Sudan conflict over the al-Fashaga triangle. No mean objectives!
We know that his travels included Eritrea, where he sat down with President Isaias for three hours. He also held a meeting with the Ethiopian Foreign Minister.
Second: US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has repeatedly spelled out American frustrations at Eritrea’s refusal to leave Tigray. He did so once again on Saturday, 15th May.
As Blinken said: “The continued presence of Eritrean forces in Tigray further undermines Ethiopia’s stability and national unity. We again call upon the Government of Eritrea to remove its forces from Tigray. Both Eritrean and Ethiopian authorities have repeatedly promised such a withdrawal, but we have seen no movement towards implementation.”
Third: It is now nearly two months since Ethiopian PM Abiy Ahmed said that Eritrean forces would leave Tigray. There is – as the Americans rightly observe – no sign of this happening. So how can it be brought about?
The only way of persuading President Isaias that the US and the EU mean business is to hit Eritrea’s sources of external funding.
The Eritrean diaspora has – for years – been forced to pay for President Isaias’s foreign adventures and subsidise his domestic repression. The notorious 2% tax is extracted from members of the diaspora. So too are taxes to pay for Covid and the military. Failure to pay up results in threats, abuse and a severing of all services by the Eritrean state.
The Dutch showed the way – expelling Eritrea’s top diplomat to make it clear that this would not be tolerated.
Canada took the same step in 2013. In 2007 the United States closed the Eritrean consulate in Oakland, California for funneling weapons to Islamists in Somalia.
The 2% tax – and how it has been extracted from Eritreans living abroad has been carefully studied. A Dutch report showed how this happened in Belgium, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Britain.
Source: US State Department
Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa Jeffrey Feltman has just completed his first visit to the region as U.S. Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa, traveling to Egypt, Eritrea, Sudan, and Ethiopia from May 4 to 13, 2021.
The Horn of Africa is at an inflection point, and the decisions that are made in the weeks and months ahead will have significant implications for the people of the region as well as for U.S. interests. The United States is committed to addressing the interlinked regional crises and to supporting a prosperous and stable Horn of Africa in which its citizens have a voice in their governance and governments are accountable to their citizens.
A sovereign and united Ethiopia is integral to this vision. Yet we are deeply concerned about increasing political and ethnic polarization throughout the country. The atrocities being perpetrated in Tigray and the scale of the humanitarian emergency are unacceptable. The United States will work with our international allies and partners to secure a ceasefire, end this brutal conflict, provide the life-saving assistance that is so urgently needed, and hold those responsible for human rights abuses and violations accountable. The crisis in Tigray is also symptomatic of a broader set of national challenges that have imperiled meaningful reforms. As Special Envoy Feltman discussed with Prime Minister Abiy and other Ethiopian leaders, these challenges can most effectively be addressed through an inclusive effort to build national consensus on the country’s future that is based on respect for the human and political rights of all Ethiopians. The presence of Eritrean forces in Ethiopia is antithetical to these goals. In Asmara, Special Envoy Feltman underscored to President Isaias Afwerki the imperative that Eritrean troops withdraw from Ethiopia immediately.
The political transition in Sudan is a once-in-a-generation opportunity that can serve as an example for the region. As Special Envoy Feltman underscored to Sudan’s leadership, the United States will continue to support that country’s ongoing transition to democracy so that Sudan can claim its place as a responsible regional actor after three decades as a destabilizing force. We are also committed to working with international partners to facilitate resolution of regional flash points—such as the dispute over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) and conflict on Sudan’s borders—so they do not undermine the fragile progress made since the revolution.
As Special Envoy Feltman discussed with leaders in Addis Ababa, Cairo, and Khartoum, Egypt and Sudan’s concerns over water security and the safety and operation of the dam can be reconciled with Ethiopia’s development needs through substantive and results-oriented negotiations among the parties under the leadership of the African Union, which must resume urgently. We believe that the 2015 Declaration of Principles signed by the parties and the July 2020 statement by the AU Bureau are important foundations for these negotiations, and the United States is committed to providing political and technical support to facilitate a successful outcome.
The Special Envoy will return to the region in short order to continue an intensive diplomatic effort on behalf of President Biden and Secretary Blinken.
Source: TPLF
