UN chief calls on parties “to move forward urgently”
November 14 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The UN Secretary General, António Guterres, has celebrated the agreement between the Ethiopian Army and the Tigray rebels that establishes the conditions for the implementation of the peace agreement.
Guterres’s spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric, has indicated through a United Nations statement that both parties must act urgently for the rule to become operational.
“The Secretary General welcomes yesterday’s agreement between the high command of the Ethiopian Army and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Tigray that establishes the modalities for the implementation of the Permanent Cessation of Hostilities Agreement (COHA),” Dujarric explained.
Along these lines, Guterres has reiterated the UN’s willingness “to support this critical process.”
In addition, the head of the organization has asked the parties “to move forward urgently” with the aim of “translating the agreement into concrete improvements for civilians on the ground, including the acceleration of the facilitation of humanitarian access and the restoration of the essential services”.
This weekend Ethiopian military officials and rebels from the Tigray region agreed to form a joint committee to implement an international “disarmament, demobilization and reintegration” program and facilitate humanitarian corridors, after meeting for five days in Nairobi.
The conflict in Tigray erupted in November 2020 after a TPLF attack on the main Army base, located in Mekelle, after which the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered an offensive against the group after months of political tensions. and administrative, including the TPLF’s refusal to recognize an electoral postponement and its decision to hold regional elections outside of Addis Ababa.
The TPLF accuses Abiy of stoking tensions since he came to power in April 2018, when he became the first Oromo to take office. Until then, the TPLF had been the dominant force within the coalition that has ruled Ethiopia since 1991, the ethnically based Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). The group opposed Abiy’s reforms, which it viewed as an attempt to undermine his influence.
