The TPLF denies the creation of an interim authority in Tigray, says it depends on “consultations” with Ethiopia

March 6 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Tigray (TPLF) has denied that an interim authority has been established in the Tigray region (north) and has stressed that this step will take place “only after consultations between the parties”, in line with the peace agreement signed in november in south africa.

“The Tigray Interim Administration will be established only after there are consultations between the parties to the Pretoria Agreement,” the group’s spokesman, Getachew Reda, said in a message on his Twitter account.

Thus, he has stated that “the information about the establishment of the Interim Administration of Tigray without the participation of Addis Ababa goes against reality.” “Tigray is only trying to do his part”, he has settled.

Getachew’s statements came after a local media outlet indicated that the TPLF had completed the process of forming an interim regional administration made up of 28 people, pending approval by the Ethiopian central government.

In recent weeks there have been several calls for the formation of an inclusive interim government to settle the serious crisis in Tigray, the scene of a war between November 2020 and November 2022. Several Tigrayan opposition parties have accused the TPLF of trying to monopolize the process.

Since the signing of the agreement in Pretoria, the parties have maintained contacts with a view to materializing all its clauses, including a ceasefire and the withdrawal of Eritrean troops, who fought in the war on the side of the Ethiopian Army, which also had with the support of militias from the Ethiopian region of Amhara.

The conflict in Tigray erupted in November 2020 after an attack by the TPLF against the main Army base, located in Mekelle, after which the Government of Abiy Ahmed 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 accused 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.