ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – A second round of peace talks between Ethiopia’s government and a rebel group aimed at ending a decades-old conflict in the country’s largest region Oromiya has ended without a deal, a senior Ethiopian official said on Tuesday.
The negotiations in Tanzania between the government and the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) followed talks in April and May that also failed to produce an agreement.
The OLA is an outlawed splinter group of a formerly banned opposition party that returned from exile in 2018. Its grievances are rooted in the alleged marginalisation and neglect of people in Oromiya, which surrounds the capital Addis Ababa.
The violence in Oromiya has killed hundreds of people in the past few years and been one of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s main security headaches since the end of a two-year civil war in the northern Tigray region last year.
“Due to the intransigence of the other party, the talks have come to an end without an agreement,” Redwan Hussien, Abiy’s national security adviser, said in a post on social media site X.
“The obstructive approach and unrealistic demands of the other party are the principal reasons why these talks could not succeed.”
OLA spokesperson Odaa Tarbi did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A source close to the talks told Reuters that there were no plans to resume discussions.
The government struck a peace deal in November last year to end the conflict in Tigray after tens of thousands were killed and millions displaced.
But conflict has raged elsewhere. Besides Oromiya, fighting in the neighbouring Amhara region between government forces and local militiamen has killed hundreds of people since late July.
(Reporting by Dawit Endeshaw in Addis Ababa and Giulia Paravicini in Nairobi; Writing by Elias Biryabarema; Editing by Nick Macfie)
