Ethiopia’s government and rebels from the country’s Tigray region say they have accepted an invitation by the African Union to participate in peace talks in South Africa.
The African Union (AU) invited the rival parties to negotiations aimed at ending a two-year conflict that has left thousands of civilians dead and millions uprooted.
Both sides had previously said they were prepared to participate in AU-mediated talks but intense fighting has continued to rage across Tigray, a northern region bordering Eritrea.
The region of six million people has been facing desperate shortages of food, fuel, medicines and other emergency supplies, with the United Nations World Food Programme warning of rising malnutrition even before the latest fighting halted aid deliveries.
The talks headed by AU chair Moussa Faki Mahamat and slated for this weekend will be the first formal negotiations between the two sides since the war broke out in November 2020.
The Ethiopian government “has accepted this invitation which is in line with our principled position regarding the peaceful resolution of the conflict and the need to have talks without preconditions,” Redwan Hussein, the national security adviser to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, said on Twitter on Wednesday.
In a statement, the leaders of rebel-held Tigray said they were “ready” to send negotiators, but raised questions about invited participants, observers and guarantors.
“Considering we were not consulted prior to the issuance of this invitation, we need clarification to some of the following issues to establish an auspicious start for the peace talks,” read a statement signed by Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) leader Debretsion Gebremichael.
