Addis Abeba –Ethiopia and Eritrea shared long-standing turbulent relations marked by a brief period of tactical and opportunistic alliance where comprehensive and strategic cooperation is lacking.
Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia in May 1993 after enduring a protracted liberation struggle. Eritrea’s separation from Ethiopia was hailed as a peaceful process amidst fundamental issues, including border settlement, port utilization, and trade harmonization that were neglected during the separation.
Ethiopia and Eritrea shared cordial and fraternal ties after Eritrea’s independence and collaborated in many economic and defense spheres. Many have hoped that a new era of peace and stability would dawn in the Horn of Africa region, watching not only the peaceful separation of the two countries but also the positive relations that Addis Abeba and Asmara shared during their honeymoon.
However, the initial euphoria and optimism were short-lived. They reversed following the outbreak of the Ethio-Eritrean border war in May 1998, barely five years after the acclaimed peaceful separation of Eritrea. The complex ideological, political, and historical divergences intermingled with economic tension precipitated a minor border skirmish around Badme on 6 May 1998, swiftly escalating into a full-blown border war. The border war that claimed tens of thousands of lives from both sides and squandered both countries’ meager resources concluded with the signing of the Algiers Peace Agreement in Algiers, Algeria, on 12 December 2000.
Nevertheless, the Algiers Peace Agreement failed to generate stable and enduring peace, following Ethiopia’s refusal to comply with EEBC’s border ruling that awarded a contested border to Eritrea; both Ethiopian and Eritrean employed mutual hostility toward each other and maintained Cold War-like relations, which had a destabilizing impact in the Horn of Africa.
The unprecedented thawing of Ethiopia and Eritrea relations in July 2018 altered the pattern of Ethiopia and Eritrea’s diplomatic engagement. The two countries ceased mutual destabilization, reignited legations, and resumed flights after decades of deadlock. Ethiopian and Eritrean leaders were greatly praised regionally and internationally for their initiative in restoring the two countries’ diplomatic relations. The normalized Ethiopia and Eritrea relations won Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize. Ethiopian and Eritrean leaders also earned the highest medals in the United Arab Emirates and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for reconfiguring the two countries’ relations.
Drawbacks of the 2018 Ethiopia-Eritrea Truce
The 2018 Peace Accord was a highly personalized pact driven by the two countries’ leaders without the involvement of various stakeholders, including borderland communities, opposition political parties, the national law-making body, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, making the truce volatile. The details of the diplomatic breakthrough were shrouded with secrecy where transparency was missing, and fundamental issues, including but not limited to border demarcation, trade harmonization, port utilization, and currency synchronization, were overlooked. Furthermore, the peace accord was also bereft of institutional and legal backstopping, making the peace agreement fragile and subject to the drawing board.
The TPLF was indifferent about Addis Abeba and Asmara’s peace pact, claiming it was a ploy against the Tigray people and showed less enthusiasm for its implementation. The rapprochement has brought the once rogue state of Eritrea to the center of the geopolitics of the Horn of Africa, re-integrated it with the regional and international body politic, witnessed by the lift of UN sanctions in November 2018, and re-joined the regional security architecture, IGAD, in June 2023 after decades of its absence.
However, the truce has exacerbated the center-periphery tension in Ethiopia and sowed a seed of the Tigray war (2020-2022). The reconfigured alliance with Eritrea gave much leverage to the federal government in Addis Abeba, which boiled tension between TPLF and the Ethiopian federal government and culminated in the Tigray war outbreak on 03 November 2020. The two-year civil war in the Tigray region inflicted massive human suffering, strained Ethiopia’s resources, and drained Ethiopia’s diplomatic standing both at the regional and international scenes.
The 2018 peace deal invited Eritrea, which Asmara accepted with open arms and demonstrated tremendous commitment to wipe out the shared foe, TPLF. Threefold goals prompted Eritrea’s involvement in the Tigray war. First, TPLF is Eritrea’s arch nemesis due to the old days wounds and long-standing grudges that were neither forgiven nor forgotten. For the Eritrean government, the Tigray war is a dream come true to avenge TPLF. Second, to overcome its decade-long diplomatic isolation generated from the Ethio-Eritrean deadlock in the aftermath of the Algiers Peace Agreement. Third, to balkanize and create a weak Ethiopia where Eritrea can exploit resources and play a king-making role.
Back to Square One?
On 02 November 2022, the Ethiopian federal government and TPLF signed the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement (COHA) in Pretoria, South Africa, under the auspices of the African Union. The international community hailed the peace deal as a new dawn in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa region. However, the truce faced a divided reception by close observers and the wider public.
The most striking pitfall of the peace accord is the non-involvement of major actors of the war, most notably comrade-in-combatants, the Amhara and Eritrean forces. The war-making coalition was not a party to the peacemaking process. Eritrea viewed the Pretoria truce as a bulwark against its objective of finishing its archenemy, the TPLF.
The Pretoria truce brought a downturn in the renewed Ethio-Eritrean rapprochement. It appears that the Ethiopia and Eritrea relation is back to square one of stalemate in the aftermath of the culmination of the Tigray war. Eritrea voiced its concern regarding the signed peace truce and claimed it as a stab in the back by its partner-in-war, the federal government of Ethiopia. Consequently, Eritrea derailed the implementation of the Pretoria truce since the Eritrean troops still occupied Tigray territory even closer to three years after the signing of the Pretoria truce.
Multiple sources also indicated that Asmara is offering financial and logistical assistance to the Amhara rebel groups, which have been in fallout with the Ethiopian federal government since August 2023 over the federal government’s attempt to integrate the Amhara region special forces into the Ethiopian National Defense Force.
Following Ethiopia’s assertive tone regarding access to the Red Sea since October 2023, concerns have been raised that Ethiopia and Eritrea are gearing towards another cycle of war, threatening regional peace. With the signing of the memorandum of understanding between Ethiopia and Somaliland on 01 January 2024 that granted Ethiopia access to commercial ports and a naval base along Somaliland’s coast in exchange for recognition of the breakaway republic’s independence, the tension between Ethiopia and Eritrea temporarily eased. However, the signed maritime pact sparked controversy in the Horn of Africa, straining Addis Abeba-Mogadishu relations. The latter regards the deal as an act of aggression by Ethiopia. In response, Somalia tightened relations with Eritrea and Egypt, with whom Ethiopia shared shaky ties, to put pressure on Addis Abeba.
In October 2024, the Eritrean president hosted leaders from Somalia and Egypt, which led to the configuration of a new Axis of Alliance prompted by shared enmity towards Ethiopia and destined to contain Ethiopia’s pursuit of sovereign access to the seaport. Eritrea’s move signaled a complete reversal of the modest gains made by the much-celebrated 2018 Ethio-Eritrea truce.
In July 2024, Eritrea banned Ethiopian Airlines from flying to Asmara, citing luggage theft and unwarranted price hikes, accusations denied by Ethiopian Airlines. Ethiopian Airlines suspended all its flights to Asmara starting 03 September, 2024, claiming operational challenges in Eritrea, including Eritrean authorities’ freeze of its bank account. The development has brought Ethiopia and Eritrea relations to a new low in the aftermath of 2018 thawed Addis-Asmera relations.
It is amidst rising tension that Ethiopia’s former prime minister accused the Eritrean president Isaias Afwerki of working to reignite a new war in Northern Ethiopia, exploiting TPLF division and pleading with the international community to avert deadly war promptly. Eritrea denied the accusation and described the accusation as Ethiopia’s tactic to scapegoat Eritrea for its domestic conflict.
Eritrea reportedly mobilized reserved troops, engaged in active recruitments of conscripts, and imposed foreign travel bans on its citizens amidst rising tension with Ethiopia. Ethiopia, on its part, allowed the Birged Nhamedu, a diaspora-based anti-Eritrean regime movement, to open its office in Addis Abeba after the group held a conference in the capital city on 25 January, 2025, taking the rising tension to the next height. The possibility of an armed conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea is unlikely, at least for now, but we can’t rule out a minor skirmish around the border.
Tension in the Horn of Africa
The Horn of Africa region is the most conflicted region, grappling with webs of violent conflicts entailing deadly terrorism in Somalia, devastative civil war in Sudan, looming insurgencies and fragile peace in Ethiopia, and dire security conditions in South Sudan. The rising Asmara-Addis Abeba tension further erodes regional cooperation and exacerbates the volatile regional security in the Horn of Africa.
The tension between Ethiopia and Eritrea could also quickly draw the extra-regional actors, who already showed an appetite to secure their footprint in the region to project their influence and protect their security and economic interests. Influenced by its row with Ethiopia over the GERD dispute, Egypt could throw its weight behind Eritrea to contain Ethiopia’s access to port ambition in the region, which can take the tension to the next height due to the interplay of dam tension with political dispute.
The arrival of Cairo also triggers regional rivalries by drawing other competing extra-regional actors into the boiling Ethiopia and Eritrea tension. UAE has a strong influence in the region, as facilitated by its comprehensive partnership with Ethiopia in the last six years, and the port project could back Ethiopia’s position. The UAE‘s involvement could also further evoke its strategic competitor, Saudi Arabia, with whom Abu Dhabi already engaged in proxy warfare in the years-long Sudanese Civil War.
Egypt’s maneuver could also disgruntle Ankara, whose influence and profile are rapidly growing in the Horn of Africa region, notable after Türkiye’s recent skillful diplomacy in brokering peace between Ethiopia and Somalia over months-long tension over a maritime pact. The involvement of external actors not only exacerbates the tension due to the interplay of multiple factors and many actors but also undermines the peacemaking effort. Hence, the Asmara-Addis Abeba tension has a risk of destabilizing the prevailing volatile security landscape in the region and compromising freedom navigation in the Red Sea and Bab-el-Mandeb strait, which has already been under strain following the outbreak of war in Gaza and also emboldening terrorist groups like Al-Shabab and ISIS in the region due to possible diversion of attention and resources from counterterrorism.
The international community should carefully monitor the development and take all possible proactive measures to contain further escalation and keep another round of bloodshed at bay. The diplomatic channels should be reopened, and direct talks should be initiated between Addis Abeba and Asmara to de-escalate the tension and rebuild trust. AS
Negera Gudeta holds a Ph.D. in Global Studies, specializing in Peace and Security in Africa, from the University of Leipzig. He is also a researcher focusing on security and migration in the Horn of Africa.
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