By Alemayehu Fentaw Weldemariam*
The Pretoria peace deal in Ethiopia was an agreement to cease hostilities. It wasn’t a comprehensive political settlement. A political settlement is an enduring agreement among powerful groups that delivers some benefits to avert conflict.
The Ethiopian government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front signed the Pretoria agreement in 2022. It stopped large-scale fighting in Tigray and created a framework for disarmament and other immediate measures. But it was also meant to pave the way for political dialogue addressing underlying disputes.
This political settlement would have restored Tigray’s self-rule through an elected regional government. It would have restored the region’s representation in Ethiopia’s two houses of parliament, and the federal executive and judiciary. Instead, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front was deregistered and Tigray was excluded from the June 2026 elections.
The Pretoria deal also required the withdrawal of Eritrean and other non-federal forces from Tigrayan territories. It called for accountability for alleged war crimes and other violations.
This broader settlement was never reached. The consequences are now becoming clear.
Fighting has resumed between government troops and Tigrayan forces, with air and drone strikes hitting the region. Seven armed organisations – including groups that fought one another during the 2020-2022 Tigray war – have formed an alliance seeking to remove Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government.
Much of the international response to the escalation in conflict has focused on the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. In late September 2026, for instance, US ambassador Ervin Massinga accused the front of making the
poor decision to launch a large-scale offensive.
He described the campaign as an “unwinnable fight”, and threatened further sanctions against the front and leaders of the newly formed armed alliance.
But focusing on who launched the latest offensive risks obscuring a more important question: why the peace process that ended the Tigray war in 2022 failed to prevent a return to conflict.
I am a constitutional scholar and country expert on Ethiopia, whose focus includes peacemaking and peacebuilding. In my view, the failure to move from the Pretoria agreement to a broader political settlement has had three major consequences:
- the emergence of an armed alliance connecting conflicts across several regions
- renewed attacks that risk further civilian casualties and mass displacement
- growing tensions with Eritrea that could draw Ethiopia’s conflicts into a wider regional confrontation.
Preventing a broader war in Ethiopia will, therefore, require more than a return to the Pretoria agreement. The country needs a comprehensive political settlement. This should be negotiated between Abiy’s leadership and anti-government forces – not just another bilateral agreement with Tigray.
The transition
The Pretoria agreement imposed military and political obligations on both the Ethiopian government and Tigrayan forces.
The Tigray People’s Liberation Front was to disarm. The federal government was to help remove the front’s terrorist designation, restore essential services in Tigray and enable humanitarian access. Federal authority was to return to Tigray.
Subsequent peace talks in Nairobi linked the handover of Tigray’s heavy weapons to the withdrawal of foreign and non-federal forces from Tigray.
Tigrayan forces began surrendering heavy weapons in January 2023. An African Union monitoring team witnessed and confirmed this process. But the federal government did not secure the corresponding withdrawal of forces.
These failures don’t absolve Tigray’s leadership of some responsibility for the escalation in conflict. Its restoration of the pre-war regional administration went against the Pretoria agreement, which provided for an interim administration established through dialogue. It would govern until elections could be held under the supervision of the National Election Board. Further, reports of forced military mobilisation are serious.
But these actions occurred within a peace process already weakened by incomplete implementation.
The consequences
The formation of an anti-government coalition changes the environment. The Ethiopian Peoples’ Forces Alliance for Survival includes the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, the Oromo Liberation Army, Amhara Fano elements and organisations from other regions. Some of these groups previously fought one another.
The alliance doesn’t mean Abiy’s government is about to collapse. The federal state retains the army, air power, drones, federal revenues and the machinery of government.
But the alliance doesn’t need a common ideology or unified battlefield command to create problems for the federal government. Coordination of operations across regions could be enough.
Escalation in Tigray could draw federal forces northward. Fighting in Amhara might absorb forces and obstruct access to the north. Pressure in Oromia might require the government to defend approaches to the capital and major transport corridors.
Each front can, therefore, affect the others even if the alliance’s forces never fight side by side.
The immediate challenge for the federal government is the dispersion of forces across distant conflicts with different terrain, supply lines and political dynamics.
Renewed air and drone attacks raise the danger of another humanitarian crisis, too. Tigray is still recovering from the 2020-2022 war. Escalation risks civilian casualties, displacement and disruption to humanitarian assistance.
The Eritrea and Sudan question
Eritrea’s role in the latest escalation in conflict remains disputed. Ethiopia accuses Asmara of supporting armed groups. Eritrea denies it.
Abiy and other senior Ethiopian officials have also repeatedly said they must have access to the Red Sea. Talk of the Eritrean port of Assab has been understood in Eritrea as a threat. Assab is part of Eritrea’s internationally recognised territory. Any attempt to acquire it by force would violate Eritrean sovereignty.
The conflict could also become entangled with Sudan’s war. According to a Reuters report, Ethiopia hosts a camp used to train paramilitary fighters for Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces. Ethiopia has denied involvement. It instead accuses Sudan’s armed forces of supporting the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. Sudan denies this.
If these alignments harden, the Ethiopian and Sudanese conflicts could provide one another with weapons supply routes. They could also supply recruits, rear bases and external support. This raises the risk of conflict extending from Sudan through northern Ethiopia towards Eritrea and the Red Sea.
What next?
The immediate priorities are ending attacks on populated areas and protecting humanitarian corridors. Independent monitoring must also be restored and outstanding security obligations completed.
Another bilateral bargain between Addis Ababa and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front would be inadequate. The conflict now connects armed movements and political grievances across several regions.
Preventing a wider war requires a comprehensive agreement that involves the federal government, the alliance of armed groups, non-armed political actors and civil society. It must address territorial disputes, political representation, elections, accountability, regional autonomy, constitutional reform and the distribution of power.
Pretoria stopped one phase of one war. Its incomplete implementation left unresolved disputes that are now colliding.
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* Ph.D. Fellow, Center for Constitutional Democracy, Indiana University
