It’s an important trip by the secretary of state, because the U.S. is one of the major brokers of the peace deal that was signed in November between the Tigrayan officials and the federal government. And the agreement, the peace agreement, is not really going according to what was stated in the documents that were signed in Pretoria and in Nairobi after that. So it’s very important that the secretary made this trip to push for the implementation, the full implementation, of this agreement, because the implementation is lagging behind. We are not seeing so much — so much has changed, but not enough is on the ground. So it’s important for him to make that visit.
The terms of the agreement, most importantly, are the establishment — the normalization of relations between the Tigray state and the federal government, and the establishment of an interim government in Tigray regional state, which is really lagging behind, because the federal government, although it’s not stated in the peace agreement, is holding the disbursement of the budget for the regional state until after Tigray formed its interim government — dismantled the previous government that was elected shortly before the war erupted, and established an interim government. So, the federal government is still holding the budget for the regional state. Civil servants are not being paid as we speak. It’s been more than two years. So, this is lagging behind, and they need to put a lot of pressure on this to put it on the fast track.
— source democracynow.org | Mar 16, 2023