According to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, talks with the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) rebel group will start on Tuesday in Tanzania.
Since the OLA has been at odds with the government intermittently for decades, this is the first time the Ethiopian government has formally said that it will engage in negotiations with the OLA.
“A negotiation with Oneg Shene will start a day after tomorrow in Tanzania,” Abiy said on Sunday, using another name for the OLA.
A request for comment was not immediately answered by OLA spokesperson Odaa Tarbii.
The Oromo Liberation Front, a historically illegal opposition party that returned from exile after Abiy became president in 2018, is the parent organisation of the OLA. The group claims that the Oromo people have been neglected by the federal government and marginalised.
The OLA and the federal government hold each other responsible for a number of attacks in Ethiopia’s most populous area, Oromiya, in which a large number of civilians were killed.
The state-appointed human rights commission reported in February that an attack it blamed on the OLA resulted in at least 50 fatalities.
The OLA and another Oromo group accused the Ethiopian government of carrying out airstrikes that resulted in the deaths of numerous people in October.
“The people of Ethiopia and the government eagerly need this negotiation,” Abiy said at a ceremony honouring a previous peace deal achieved between the federal government and forces in the Tigray region, where fighting had erupted in November 2020 and ended in November 2022.
The fighting between the OLA and the federal government is separate to the fighting in Tigray, but the OLA forged an alliance with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in 2021.
