Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has ruled out any military confrontation with neighboring Eritrea over access to the Red Sea, amid growing concerns that tensions between the two countries could escalate.
In remarks shared by his office on Thursday via social media, Abiy emphasized that while securing access to the sea remains a strategic priority for landlocked Ethiopia, his administration is committed to achieving it through diplomatic means.
“There is no plan or interest in going to war with Eritrea to gain access to the sea,” Abiy said, seeking to calm regional anxieties about a potential conflict in the Horn of Africa.
Recent reports of Eritrea activating a broad military mobilization and Ethiopia deploying troops closer to the shared border had prompted warnings from analysts and officials about the risk of renewed hostilities.
Such a conflict could reverse the fragile peace that earned Abiy the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize and exacerbate humanitarian challenges already gripping the region due to ongoing crises, including the war in Sudan.
The two countries officially ended two decades of hostility in 2018, when Abiy and Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki signed a landmark peace deal. However, their relationship has soured again in recent years, particularly after Eritrea was excluded from post-war negotiations following Ethiopia’s 2020–2022 conflict with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).
Though Eritrean forces supported Ethiopian federal troops during the war in Tigray, relations cooled sharply once the conflict ended — raising fears that lingering disputes could spiral into a fresh confrontation.
