The rebel Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) has issued a statement outlining conditions to engage in dialogue and find a political solution to the ongoing conflict in northern Ethiopia.
TPLF demanded withdrawal of the federal and Amhara forces from Tigray and many others as preconditions.
The statement further said members of the Eritrean security, intelligence and defense establishment currently in Ethiopia must leave the country immediately and without any delay.
“We in the government of Tigray have been consistent in our principled position on the need for dialogue to end the crisis peacefully,” said Getachew Reda,” senior official of TPLF tweeted on Thursday.
“In the meantime, our forces are advancing in every direction and no one is going to stop them, not even rain. Ethiopian needs a new political dispensation,” he said in an earlier tweet posted on the same day.
The Ethiopian government declared a unilateral ceasefire last month after its troops pulled out of Mekelle in what it called a strategic withdrawal. The TPLF dismissed that truce as a joke and said it had driven the government out of the city.
The government did not comment on TPLF’s proposal.
Addis Ababa has been battling the TPLF since early November, when it accused the then-governing party of Tigray of attacking military bases across the region. The TPLF has denied the charges.
Thousands of civilians and an unknown number of combatants have since been killed.
Earlier TPLF said it wanted a full withdrawal of troops from Eritrea and the neighboring state of Amhara before it could engage in any talks with the government about a ceasefire.
MG/abj/APA