The Chairperson of the African Union (AU) Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, has launched the first direct talks between the Ethiopian government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) rebel group as part of its ongoing process to find a political solution to the conflict in the Tigray region. The war in Ethiopia, between the federal government and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), resumed at full scale despite attempted negotiations that were underway. The two sides agree that the first shots were fired in the early morning of August 24 on the southern borders of Tigray, where it adjoins the neighboring Amhara state at the town of Kobo. Each side blames the other for firing those shots. This escalated the tensions between the two rival parties. An AU statement issued on Tuesday, October 25, quoted Mahamat as he “encouraged by the early demonstration of commitment to peace by the parties and to seek a lasting political solution to the conflict in the supreme interest of Ethiopia.” The talks hosted by South Africa are facilitated by Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria’s former president and AU High Representative in the Horn of Africa, and Uhuru Kenya, Kenya’s former president as well as South Africa’s former deputy president Dr. Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka. The statement adds in part that Mahamat expressed his appreciation to President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa for hosting the talks “in the spirit of pan-African solidarity to find African solutions to African problems.” Mahamat reiterated the AU’s commitment to support the parties to the Tigray conflict “in an Ethiopian-owned and AU-led process to silence the guns towards a united, stable, peaceful and resilient Ethiopia.” Representatives of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the United Nations, the United States government are also participating as observers in the AU-led peace process.
