Ethiopia's government and rebel group the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) both said on Wednesday that they have accepted the African Union's invitation to participate in peace talks in South Africa on October 8 aimed at ending their two-year conflict. The talks, slated for this weekend in South Africa, will be the first formal negotiations between the two sides since the conflict broke out in November 2020, two diplomatic sources said. The Ethiopian government "has accepted this invitation which is in line with our principled position regarding the peaceful resolution of the conflict and the need to have talks without preconditions," Redwan Hussein, the national security adviser to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, said on Twitter. Meanwhile, the TPLF said in a statement that they had accepted the invitation and asked for clarification on invited participants, observers and guarantors.

Source: Ethiopian News October 06, 2022 18:49 UTC