Eritrea severs diplomatic ties with Ethiopia in tit-for-tat move

Eritrea says it is breaking diplomatic ties with its neighbour Ethiopia in response to the expulsion of diplomats from Addis Ababa, as fighting between Ethiopia’s federal forces and a coalition of armed opposition groups intensifies.

“Eritrea has no option but to reciprocate in kind and sever all diplomatic ties with Ethiopia with all the negative corollaries that this entails,” its Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on X on Thursday.

This came shortly after Ethiopia announced it would close its embassy in Asmara “in response to Eritrea’s direct and indirect acts of hostility and belligerence against Ethiopia”.

Ethiopia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also declared 10 Eritrean diplomats in Addis Ababa, including the charge d’affaires and others accredited to the African Union, “persona non grata for involvement in activities that pose a direct threat to Ethiopia’s national security”, requiring them to leave the country within 48 hours.

In its statement, Eritrea’s ministry said claims of its involvement in hostile activities were “astounding”.

“In reality, it is Ethiopia which has been pursuing an agenda of incessant hostility,” it said, adding that Addis Ababa had waged war against Eritrea to gain access to the Red Sea.

It also accused Ethiopia of hosting, training and arming Eritrean opposition groups to stoke internal conflict.

Addis Ababa has in turn accused Eritrea, ⁠Sudan and Egypt of supporting an opposition alliance led by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) that has fought against troops loyal to Ethiopia’s federal government since last week.

Fierce clashes between Ethiopian federal forces and the armed opposition groups are continuing. On Wednesday and Thursday, explosions were heard in Addis Ababa, while fighters have also clashed with government forces in the northern Afar region.

Days after the latest clashes broke out last week, the chief administrator of the Afar region, Haji Awol ⁠Arba, told Al Jazeera that Eritrean soldiers had crossed into Afar to join the alliance’s offensive.

The fighting marks the biggest escalation since the end of a 2020-2022 civil war. Eritrea fought alongside the Ethiopian government during the Tigray war, but relations between the neighbours have since deteriorated.

Eritrea was not a party to the Pretoria Peace Agreement that ended the fighting in November 2022, and ⁠relations between the two nations quickly soured.

Ties between the neighbours have been historically fragile. In 1962, Ethiopia annexed Eritrea. An armed independence struggle, led by Eritrea’s current President Isaias Afwerki, secured independence in 1993.

When Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power in 2018, he moved to end the tensions and normalise diplomatic relations with President Isaias. But Abiy’s ambitions to seek direct sea access for landlocked Ethiopia have contributed to tensions.

In recent years, Abiy has repeated that Ethiopia has a right to sea access, words that officials in Asmara take as a declaration of territorial conflict with Eritrea.