According to State Department spokesperson Ned Price, US Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa Jeffrey Feltman will visit Turkey, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Egypt beginning Thursday to discuss the Ethiopian crisis.
Price said Feltman will discuss with his colleagues “what the international community seeks when it comes to Ethiopia, which is primarily a negotiated settlement to the crisis because we know that the dispute undermines the peace and security in the Horn of Africa,” as stated during a press conference.
The United States has frequently urged all parties involved in the conflict to halt hostilities immediately, but combat between the Ethiopian government and rebel organizations, principally the Tigray People’s Liberation Army, has continued (TPLF). In this scope, Ned Price stated again that there is no military solution to the Ethiopian problem. Price noted that Feltman is leaving to pursue support for diplomacy as the first and only option for achieving a cease-fire.
The armed struggle between government forces and fighters from the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), now in its 13th month, has killed thousands of deaths and left many others experiencing famine-like circumstances due to a lack of foreign aid in the afflicted areas.
The struggle between Ethiopian and allied forces and fighters from the country’s northern Tigray area, who have long dominated the national government, has killed tens of thousands of people. The United States and others have worried that the Horn of Africa’s second-most populated country could divide and destabilize the region.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, has stressed that he had led his country’s army “from the battlefront” beginning Tuesday. However, in the statement made by the Ethiopian government the other day, it was pointed out that Abiy Ahmed returned to Addis Ababa and the successful operations of the army.
