Ethiopia has been calling for the government of Sudan to withdraw forces from Ethiopian territories that it controlled after November 2020
borkena
February 15, 2021
The Foreign Ministry of Sudan on Sunday said that Ethiopian forces crossed the Sudanese border in what it called “an act of aggression.”
The Ministry, as reported by the Sudan Tribune, warned Ethiopia “against the consequence of the repeated violation of Sudan’s territorial integrity.”
The Ministry said in its statement, which was published on the same date, that “Sudan condemns and denounces Ethiopia’s aggression by deploying its forces in (Sudanese) territory, in direct violation of Sudan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”
The Sudanese government considers Ethiopian territories that it controlled after November 4 as “Sudanese territories.” And it is unclear if the statement from Sudan’s ministry is making a reference to those territories which it controlled as the Ethiopian Defense Force was battling Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) forces.
Ethiopia’s Ministry of Foreign has not yet responded to the allegation from Sudan. The Minister and the spokesperson have travelled to the Turkish capital Ankara for the inaugural event of new chancery and residency of Ethiopian embassy. The ministry announced that the weekly briefing for this week is cancelled.
Ethiopia has been accusing Sudan of incursions into the Ethiopian territory, in some places as deep as 50 kilometers deep inside Ethiopia, soon after the Ethiopian Defense Force based in the region left after November 4, 2020, for a law enforcement operation in the Tigray region.
Since then, Ethiopia has been attempting to convince Sudan to withdraw from the parts of Ethiopia that it took by force after November 4 and compensate for the damages it caused to Ethiopian farmers in the region.
There have been mediation efforts by state actors in the region, like South Sudan among others, to resolve the dispute between the two countries, but Ethiopia insisted that the issue could be resolved through bilateral talks. However, Ethiopia set withdrawal of Sudanese forces from occupied territories as a precondition for it.
Over the weekend, spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia, Dina Mufti, gave virtual briefings to diplomats and international media based in South Sudan. He called on the government of Sudan to stop pillaging Ethiopian villages and displacing residents along the border area.
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