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Mounting worries are present about the potential of armed conflict between East African neighbors, Ethiopia and the Eritrean government, as confrontational rhetoric has escalated in recent weeks.

What Has Ethiopian Officials Said?

Landlocked Ethiopia's demands for entry to the sea coast through Eritrea has provoked a heated rhetorical conflict.

PM Abiy Ahmed first openly declared in last year that his government's maritime access was an existential matter, statements that Eritrea dismissed.

Ties between the both governments have often been tense. Following a decades-long struggle for freedom, the Eritrean state, which has a long Red Sea coastline, formally separated from Ethiopia in the early 1990s, rendering it cut off from the sea.

In 1998, a border war broke out in which numerous people lost their lives.

Latest Statements from Ethiopia's Leadership

Abiy and army chief Field Marshal Birhanu Jula have openly claimed control of Eritrean southern port of the port of Assab – about 60km from the boundary - and hinted at the desire to take it by force.

In early September, the Prime Minister said the country's "error" of being denied passage to the sea as a due to Eritrea secession would be "addressed in the future".

The Ethiopian envoy to Kenya, retired Gen Bacha Debele, said that the port was "Ethiopian property" and would be returned "using武力".

Eritrea's Answer to the Claims

Amid persistent challenges from Ethiopia, Asmara's position has been restricted to short statements on X from Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel.

The minister has dismissed Ethiopian requests for access to the Red Sea calling it "hazardous" and a "toxic agenda" of "irredentism" – a approach of retaking lost territory.

Government spokespeople cautioned on recently that efforts to validate "blatant hostility" would have significant repercussions for the Ethiopian government and its neighbors and is a "boundary that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Defense Movements on the Region

There have been no reports of large-scale army activities in the frontier regions between the neighboring states.

Nonetheless, in Ethiopia, government media has displayed graduation ceremonies of numerous trainees at different defense facilities.

The head of personnel division of the armed forces, General Hachalu, stated recently in an discussion that the military was in a "reliable position" as "tens of thousands of young people" were joining it, which he said was "a warning to our opponents".

Past Origins of the Tension

For over fifty years from the late 19th century, the territory was ruled by Italian rulers.

Following World War II, it was then managed by the British administration before turning into a federated part of Ethiopia.

But in the early 1960s Emperor Haile Selassie I ended this arrangement and the region became totally absorbed into Ethiopia.

A three-decade long internal conflict ensued, finishing with military reversal in the early 1990s. Independence was then approved by Eritreans in a referendum in 1993.

Briefly in the 1990s, there were positive ties between the governments in Addis Ababa and Asmara, but they clashed over the specific demarcation of their common border, leading to hostilities in 1998.

Although this finished in a ceasefire agreement in 2000, it was never fully implemented, and the both countries stayed at loggerheads.

This situation improved in 2018, when the Prime Minister made gestures to Eritrea's leader the president. The two endorsed a statement that the war was over – a action that won Abiy the Nobel Peace Prize.

The both administrations were then allies in Ethiopia's 2020-2022 armed struggle in the northern region.

However diplomatic connections have later worsened once more.