Premier rejects talks as tensions escalate in breakaway region
NAIROBI, Kenya — Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed again ruled out dialogue with the leaders of the defiant Tigray region Friday but said he was willing to speak to representatives “operating legally” there during his meeting with three African Union special envoys trying to end the deadly conflict between federal troops and the region’s forces.
The meeting came as more people fled Tigray’s capital city ahead of a promised “final phase” of the army’s offensive. Meanwhile, the number of people managing to cross the border into Sudan has slowed to a trickle, raising concerns they are being blocked from leaving.
The Nobel Peace Prizewinning prime minister, who has resisted international mediation as “interference,” said he appreciated the AU envoys’ “elderly concern” but told them his government’s failure to enforce the rule of law in Tigray would “nurture a culture of impunity with devastating cost to the survival of the country,” according to his office. Abiy’s government and the regional one run by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front each consider the other illegitimate.
Fighting reportedly remained well outside the Tigray capital of Mekele, a densely populated city of a halfmillion people who have been warned by the Ethiopian government that they will be shown “no mercy” if they don’t distance themselves from the region’s leaders.
Tigray has been almost entirely cut off from the outside world since Nov. 4, when Abiy announced a military offensive in response to a TPLF attack on a military base. The fighting threatens to destabilize Ethiopia, which has been described as the linchpin of the strategic Horn of Africa.