Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) and her French colleague Catherine Colonna want to hold talks on the peace process in the East African country during a joint visit to Ethiopia.
Together with Colonna, she wants to “do three things: explore with the authorities how the country can be supported on its way to lasting peace and responsibility for human rights abuses, discuss food security in the Horn of Africa and Europe’s partnership with the African Union ( AU),” wrote Baerbock on Twitter after her arrival.
At the start of the two-day visit by Baerbock and Colonna, meetings with Ethiopia’s President Sahle-Work Zewde and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali were planned in the capital Addis Ababa on Thursday. On Friday there will be talks with the AU and representatives of civil society.
Before her trip, Baerbock said on Wednesday evening: “We want to talk in Ethiopia about how Germany, France and the European Union can support Ethiopia’s path towards peace, democracy and sustainable development for all Ethiopians, which began in 2018.”
It is important to her and Colonna that after the recently concluded peace agreement, Europe “quickly shows its face in Ethiopia and offers a close partnership,” stressed the Federal Foreign Minister.
According to a diplomatic source, the ministers carried the message from the European Union on their willingness to re-engage in Ethiopia provided the ceasefire is respected and a transitional justice mechanism is put in place.
Armistice after two years of conflict in Tigray
In November, a two-year conflict in the northern Ethiopian region of Tigray ended with a ceasefire. According to their own statements, the rebels in Tigray had begun handing over their heavy weapons the day before the two foreign ministers’ visit. The spokesman for the rebel organization TPLF, Getachew Reda, said on Twitter on Wednesday that they had fulfilled part of their obligations to implement the peace agreement concluded at the beginning of November.
Before Baerbock’s trip, the World Food Program (WFP) appealed to the federal government to continue its “great commitment” in the fight against hunger in Ethiopia in 2023. Despite the ceasefire, more than twelve million people in northern Ethiopia are dependent on food aid, the head of the German WFP section, Martin Frick, told the editorial network Germany (RND).
The economic outlook for Ethiopia is “gloomy,” said Frick. In addition to the cost explosion as a result of the energy crisis, the country is suffering from the fact that the rainy season has failed to materialize in the region for the fifth time in a row. (AFP)
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