13 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The President of Eritrea, Isaias Afewerki, has accused the United States of supporting the Popular Front for the Liberation of Tigray (TPLF) during the nearly two-year conflict between the group and the Ethiopian Army in the Tigray region (north). between November 2020 and the signing of the peace agreement in November 2022.
The president has indicated in an interview with the Eritrean media Eri-Tv and Radio Dimtsi Hafash that Washington supported the “reckless military offensives” of the TPLF and has stated that the TPLF led a “repressive government” during its nearly 30 years in power. power in Ethiopia.
Thus, he recalled that the departure from power of the TPLF and the arrival of Abiy Ahmed as prime minister in 2018 led to “a period of hope and optimism in the region and beyond”, as indicated by the Eritrean Ministry of Information in your summary of the content of the interview.
“These events caused anxiety in his managers in Washington, who pushed him to indulge in reckless military offensives. Miscalculation in the balance of power was another factor behind these deplorable debacles,” Afewerki has argued.
In this sense, he has reported that the TPLF was forced to sign the cessation of hostilities agreement in Pretoria, “a text prepared mainly by Washington with the intention of avoiding its total military defeat.” “Despite this, Eritrea has no reservation if the agreement is applied in good faith and in its entirety,” he argued.
The Eritrean president has also made reference to “an enormous loss of life” in combat and has indicated that “hundreds of thousands of Tigrayans were recruited through various subterfuges.” “The accountability of the forces that instigated and launched the war is of great importance”, he has concluded.
Eritrea has militarily backed the Ethiopian Army in its offensive with the TPLF. Both the Tigrayan group and various non-governmental organizations have accused the Eritrean forces, which are withdrawing from Ethiopia, of committing abuses and war crimes during the war.
The conflict in Tigray erupted in November 2020 after a TPLF attack on the main Army base, located in Mekelle, after which the Abiy government ordered an offensive against the group. The outbreak of the fighting came after months of tensions at the political and administrative level, including the TPLF’s refusal to recognize an electoral postponement and its decision to hold regional elections on the sidelines 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.
