ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia
Rebels from Ethiopia's Oromiya region said on Monday they were in Tanzania for a second round of talks with the Ethiopian government to try to end decades of fighting.
The negotiations come more
than six months after a first round of discussions between the Oromo Liberation
Army (OLA) and Ethiopia's government ended without an agreement. The conflict
in recent years has killed hundreds of people and displaced tens of thousands
in Ethiopia's most populous region.
"We remain committed to
finding a peaceful political settlement," the OLA said in its statement.
The OLA said it had delayed
announcing the negotiations to make sure its team could get safely from what it
called the frontlines in Oromiya to the venue.
An official close to the
mediators, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the talks started last
week in Tanzania's commercial capital, Dar es Salaam, and is being facilitated
by the regional Africa group IGAD.
Ethiopia's government did not
immediately respond to a request for comment.
The OLA is an outlawed
splinter group of the Oromo Liberation Front, a formerly banned opposition
party that returned from exile after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed - himself an
Oromo - took office in 2018.
Oromiya, which surrounds Addis
Ababa, the capital, is home to Ethiopia's largest ethnic Oromo group and more
than a third of the country's 110 million people.
The talks come as conflict
rages on another faultline in Ethiopia, with fighting between the army and the
Fano militia group in the mediaeval holy city of Lalibela last week, residents
told Reuters. The government said the area was peaceful.
While Fano has no formal
command structure, the part-time militia in northern Amhara region has been
battling the army since late July, emerging as the biggest security challenge
to Abiy since a war ended in the northern Tigray region a year ago.
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