General Tsadkan: Ethiopia could get into war with Eritrea

ADDIS ABABA - The Tigray Interim Administration has warned about the possibility of war between Eritrea and Ethiopia, noting that the preparations are in the "final stages" while insisting that the Tigray region could be the new battleground for the hostilities.

Gen. Tsadkan Gebretensae, Vice President and Democratization Cabinet Secretariat of the Tigray Interim Administration, said the war between the two sides is 'inevitable' while accusing Asmara of 'hostility'.

“At any moment, the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea could break out,” Tsadkan, who was formerly Chief of Staff of the Ethiopian Defense Forces, wrote in a commentary for The Africa Report, warning that the conflict could spread beyond the two countries, affecting Sudan and the Red Sea region.

“Tigray would prefer to stay out of such a conflict and promote peace,” he said, but added that the “option for peace may be narrowing, leaving war as the only option.”

According to him, the alliance between Ethiopia and Eritrea has diminished since the signing of the Pretoria agreement which brought about the cessation of hostilities within the Tigray region. “Preparations are in their final stages,” he said, cautioning that once they reach a certain point, “it becomes very hard to hold [them] back.”

Eritrea, he said, is pursuing predatory behaviour while taking advantage of countries around it — including Ethiopia and Sudan. According to him, Eritrea views Tigray as the main obstacle to its ambitions, adding that Isaias Afwerki believes the Pretoria agreement has frustrated the country.

“Those in the fragmented TPLF and military who want to protect their past and current misdeeds would prefer to protect themselves by joining Isaias in alliance,” he wrote.

He alleged that some Tigrayan leaders saw Eritrea as a tool to remove Abiy Ahmed before eventually turning against Eritrea. “The taste for power with total impunity has not left this group,” he said, accusing them of “indifference to the fate of the people of Tigray.”

Former Ethiopian President Mulatu Teshome has similarly accused Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki of attempting to “exploit divisions within the TPLF” to weaken the Pretoria Peace Agreement.

Last month, in an opinion piece for Al Jazeera, Mulatu warned that Isaias’s actions could “reignite the war in northern Ethiopia” and “tear up the whole peace deal.” He further alleged that Eritrea is supporting “divisions within the TPLF” and “engineering a militia in Ethiopia’s Amhara state” to undermine stability, Addis Standard reports.

Eritrea has rejected these allegations, with Information Minister Yemane G. Meskel calling them an “audacious claim” meant to “rationalize a war-mongering agenda.”

Eritrea argued that Ethiopia’s internal crises should not be externalized, stating, “The myriad problems besetting the region originate from Ethiopia, not elsewhere.” It also dismissed claims of military presence in Ethiopia, saying the Pretoria Agreement is “an internal Ethiopian matter.”

GAROWE ONLINE