The partnership between 2018 and 2022
The accusations exchanged by Eritrea and Ethiopia carry an unexpected sequel to the rapprochement of eight years ago. Relations improved when Abiy Ahmed took office in 2018. Eritrea subsequently fought alongside Ethiopia’s federal government in the 2020–2022 Tigray war. Addis Ababa now accuses its former ally of entering Tigray and supporting rebels; Asmara rejects those accusations. The placement of the same actors on opposing sides within such a short period invites a question about which conflict the rapprochement actually settled. The accommodation between states in 2018 and the order that would follow the Tigray war were different bargains.[1]
The concrete hinge in that distinction is 2022. As Al Jazeera recalls, Eritrea was not a party to the peace agreement ending the Tigray war, despite having fought alongside the Ethiopian government. A wartime partner remained outside the subsequent settlement. That fact cannot explain every military action today, but it shows how cooperation against a shared opponent need not produce identical interests in an accommodation with that opponent. The historical mechanism lies in this transition: the conflict enabling the armed partnership ended without ensuring that the partners would jointly shape the following order. Explaining renewed estrangement solely through ancient hostility would overlook this recent choice.[1]
The coast’s history and the present trigger
The earlier hinge is independence in 1993. Eritrea’s separation left Ethiopia without a coastline. The neighbours fought a two-year border war beginning in 1998, and the 2018 rapprochement followed that history. Sea access arises from the same territorial outcome, but the means of obtaining access remain a contemporary political choice. Abiy’s emphasis since 2023 on a right to reach the sea encounters Asmara’s perception of a threat to Assab. Eritrean Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel now alleges that the current conflict is being used to take the port. His allegation expresses a government’s defence of the coastline secured through independence; it does not establish Ethiopia’s intentions.[1]
More immediate developments help explain the timing. The Tigray People’s Liberation Front belongs to an alliance of seven armed groups seeking since September to overthrow Abiy’s government. Ethiopia closed its embassy in Asmara and ordered ten Eritrean diplomats to leave, followed by Eritrea’s severing of relations. Gedion Timothewos’s letter dated October 8 was disclosed on Friday: the minister alleges an Eritrean advance of 60 kilometres into Tigray and invokes self-defence. That distance remains independently unverified. The immediate impetus for the accusations may lie in a new rebellion, diplomatic rupture and government responses, rather than an automatic return of the past.[1]
The limits of the earlier war
Here lies the decisive difference from the 1998 war. That conflict was a border war between states; today’s allegations are shaped by armed opposition inside Ethiopia, a former wartime partnership and the argument over sea access. Eritrea denies supporting the Tigray front. Transferring the earlier war’s alignment unchanged into the current conflict would therefore explain little. For people living in Tigray, interstate rapprochement in 2018 had not prevented the civil war of 2020–2022. The scope of the accommodation between states and the scope of the internal political order remained different. The present uncertainty brings the consequences of that distinction back into view.[1]
This history should not be used to declare another war inevitable. Governments that approached one another in 2018 and parties that negotiated in 2022 made choices among alternatives. The new letter and response mark a further stage in which military accusations become diplomatic claims to rights. My reading of the chronology is that recognising a border does not alone organise the future of a wartime partnership. A more durable accommodation would gain strength by connecting access to the coast with sovereignty over it, and the political order in Tigray with the neighbouring state’s role. Whether such connections enter negotiations depends on choices by present actors, rather than on a timetable supplied by history.[1]