New Tigray interim government signals progress toward peace in Ethiopia

Activists demonstrating against war in Tigray, 2021 Activists demonstrating against war in Tigray, 2021 Brett Sayles via Pexels

The interim administration was formed following the implementation of the Pretoria peace accord, signed by the Ethiopian government and the TPLF

On 23rd March 2023, the Ethiopian government announced the establishment of an interim administration for the Tigray region. A senior official in the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), Getachew Reda, was appointed head of the interim government.

The announcement came just a day after Ethiopia’s parliament voted to remove the TPLF from an official list of terrorist organizations, on which the TPLF was included in May 2021, six months after the Tigray war began. The establishment of an interim administration was part of the Pretoria peace accord, signed in the South African capital on 2nd November 2022 between the TPLF and the federal government to end the conflict in Tigray. According to the African Union, the two-year conflict resulted in at least 600.000 casualties and displaced millions of people.
Aid workers reported how the lack of an interim government had been hampering the humanitarian response in the area, where millions of people required assistance. Since the deal, there has been some resumption of basic services and aid deliveries to the region, that was experiencing shortages of food, fuel, and medicines.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that Ethiopia’s peace process is “one of the rare bits of good news that we have in the world”, but he also underlined how the EU is going to gradually normalize its relationship with both the government of Ethiopia and the Tigray administration, keeping an eye on the settling of the conflict and the implementation of the peace agreement.
The French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna had also spoken of a “gradual re-engagement” during her January visit to Addis Ababa, announcing some huge French investments in Ethiopia for projects to rebuild infrastructure and ensure food security.

 

To read more, please visit:

Ethiopia sets up Tigray interim gov’t as part of peace plan | Abiy Ahmed News | Al Jazeera

Ethiopian PM appoints TPLF official as head of Tigray interim administration | Ethiopia | The Guardian

Ethiopia's Tigray region unveils new cabinet to lead political transition

 

by Laura Maschio 

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