sarcasm wrote: ↑12 Jan 2022, 22:56
Eritrean role in this crisis has been negative & unhelpful, they should, frankly, stay out of this conflict -White House News Briefing
Q Hi, thank you so much for doing this. Will Pres- — did — will President Biden’s call to Abiy today result in any humanitarian access to Tigray?
And you mentioned the Eritreans, so I wanted to follow up on that. Have the Eritreans returned, as the TPLF has said? And if so, is it a full-scale invasion again aimed at ending the TPLF or a limited incursion? What information do you have about the penetration of Ethiopian security structures by Eritreans? Thank you.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Great. Thank you. I’ll respond to those in the order in which you ask them.
Humanitarian access was a significant focus of the discussion between the two leaders today. President Biden was very clear, as I just explained in the readout, that full humanitarian access should be restored, unfettered to all regions of the country. The Prime Minister seemed to understand that that was the request. He has made a series of commitments, including publicly, to expand humanitarian access. And it will now be up to the Ethiopian government to deliver on what they have been pledging to do.
But we think this is broadly in the interest of all Ethiopians and, certainly, of the humanitarian situation.
On the Eritrians, as I indicated in my opening comments, their role in this crisis has been a negative from the start. You know, we do not believe that they have a constructive role to be played in a conflict that is taking place on the other side of their border. I’m not going to get into our various intelligence and other assessments of the role that they’re playing currently. But suffice it to say we still believe that their role is unhelpful and that they should, frankly, stay out of this conflict.
Q Hi, there. Thanks very much for taking this call. Speaking of countries that are playing an unhelpful role, can you tell us what is the — what message is the United States sending to the United Arab Emirates and Turkey, which have been reported to be support — supplying the government with armed drones in order to prosecate [sic] the — prosecute war?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: So, I’m not going to get into private diplomatic conversations that have taken place –with a whole range of countries, by the way, including some of the countries that border Ethiopia and other countries in the broader region.
Our approach has been to try to align all of the international actors with a voice in what is happening in Ethiopia and with any influence over Ethiopia’s leadership — including the parties, by the way, on both sides — around what I described was our objective, which is that there is no military solution, that there is only peace through dialogue between the parties. And right now, there should be a lot of energy put into dialogue aimed at a ceasefire that can try to bring this conflict to a better place.
That is how — that what we communicate in private to the various parties, including the one that you mentioned, and it’s what our public message is as well.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-roo ... -ethiopia/