Former Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta will travel to Ethiopia’s Tigray region to oversee the follow-up to last month’s peace deal. Ethiopian federal officials and officials from the Tigray region agreed Thursday night in talks in Nairobi to give the African Union full access to the region to oversee the end of the two-year conflict.
The Ethiopian military leadership and representatives of the rebel Tigray People’s Liberation Front have agreed to set up a joint monitoring team to oversee the peace deal signed in November.
The agreement, signed in South Africa, ended two years of fighting between the federal government and the TPLF that killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions.
Former Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, who is also part of the mediation team, said on Thursday that the warring factions have agreed to have a body oversee the peace deal.
“Everyone agreed and agreed to give the African Union monitoring and verification team full access, a full 360-degree point of view to ensure that all elements of the agreements will actually be implemented,” Kenyatta said.
The mediators, who met peace negotiators in Nairobi this week, expressed confidence in the return of normality to the Tigray region and peace in Ethiopia.
Professor Chacha Nyaigoti Chacha, an expert in diplomacy and international relations, said that the African Union must play its role in resolving conflicts on the continent.
“The problem for the African Union is that sometimes resolutions and determinations of this nature have not been followed up with tangible results on the ground,” Chacha said. “But we hope that this time the parties to the conflict can appreciate the fact that they are in dire need of a solution to the problems.”
War between the Ethiopian government and the Tigray rebel group broke out in November 2020 and spread to the Amhara and Afar regions.
The peace agreement has brought some relief to the suffering population in the north of the country.
Ethiopian leaders have been meeting to discuss ways to carry out the disarmament of the rebels in Tigray and neighboring regions and to negotiate the withdrawal of Eritrean forces that aided the Ethiopian army.
Kenyatta said that his team and representatives of the African Union will visit the capital of Tigray to check the progress of the peace agreement.
“They have been negotiating for the last two days, but we agreed that the real statement that they should make would be the statement that they make when we are in Mekelle in the next few days observing and verifying the actions because the documents are one thing, what we want now are the results and that’s why we turned to Mekele,” Kenyatta said.
There was no immediate word on when Kenyatta will go to Tigray.
Chacha said the visit by Kenyatta’s team will help resolve outstanding issues in the peace deal.
“The visiting actions will give them first-hand information and knowledge about the situation on the ground and when the situation on the ground is clearly understood, then the stakeholders, including the mediators, will be able to understand and appreciate how they will approach the resolution. so that they can create an atmosphere that can bring peace,” Chacha said.
Some of the provisions of the peace agreement have already been implemented, including humanitarian aid and the restoration of banking and telecommunications services.
