The 2022 Pretoria peace agreement stopped the Ethiopia–Tigray war, but it did not resolve the political and territorial disputes that produced it. That distinction has become critical: fighting has now resumed in northern Ethiopia, with the African Union and United Nations calling for immediate de-escalation and a return to dialogue under the Pretoria framework. The immediate task is therefore not simply to “preserve” a peace that held for several years, but to prevent renewed hostilities from developing into another prolonged war.
The strongest protection against another large-scale conflict would combine five elements: direct political negotiations between Ethiopian and Tigrayan actors; credible security arrangements and disarmament; progress on disputed territory and displaced people; stronger institutions capable of resolving political disputes without armed force; and sustained regional diplomacy that keeps Eritrea and other neighboring states from becoming parties to the conflict. None is sufficient alone. The experience since 2022 shows that a ceasefire can silence weapons without removing the incentives to use them again.
The central problem: Pretoria ended the war faster than it resolved the conflict
The Agreement for Lasting Peace through a Permanent Cessation of Hostilities, signed in Pretoria on November 2, 2022, was a major diplomatic achievement. It halted the two-year war between Ethiopia’s federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), established arrangements for disarmament and humanitarian access, and created a framework for restoring services and political processes.
There was genuine progress after the agreement. The African Union established a Monitoring, Verification and Compliance Mechanism; heavy weapons were handed over; essential services resumed; an interim regional administration was established; and a disarmament, demobilization and reintegration process began.
But implementation remained incomplete.
The most difficult questions were also among the most politically consequential: who controls contested territory, the return of internally displaced people, the status and role of armed forces, political representation, transitional justice and the relationship between Tigray’s regional authorities and Ethiopia’s federal government.
A peace agreement is therefore better understood as a framework than as a finished settlement. Where politically sensitive provisions remain unresolved, the risk is that each side interprets the agreement differently and waits for a more favorable balance of power.
That dynamic is especially dangerous in Ethiopia because the Tigray conflict cannot be separated completely from wider disputes over federalism, regional autonomy, territory and the distribution of political power.
What the renewed fighting changes
The return of major hostilities in September 2026 demonstrates the limits of relying on the passage of time as a peace strategy.
The African Union said on September 23 that renewed military escalation, including the seizure of the airports at Mekelle, Axum and Shire, threatened the gains made since 2022. It called for direct talks under the Pretoria framework and asked neighboring countries to support de-escalation rather than contribute to escalation.
The United Nations has similarly urged all parties to protect civilians, permit humanitarian access and resume talks in good faith. UN officials say the Secretary-General’s Horn of Africa envoy is coordinating with the AU and IGAD to support renewed dialogue.
The immediate objective is consequently narrower than solving every underlying dispute: stop the current escalation before battlefield calculations become entrenched again.
That requires a sequence in which military de-escalation creates room for political negotiations, rather than negotiations being postponed until one side believes it has achieved military advantage.
Five stabilizing factors that matter most
| Stabilizing factor | What it would require | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Direct political dialogue | Sustained federal–Tigrayan negotiations with AU facilitation where necessary | Prevents unresolved disputes from becoming military contests |
| Security arrangements | Verified cessation of hostilities, separation of forces, disarmament and credible monitoring | Reduces the ability and incentive to restart fighting |
| Territory and displacement | Practical arrangements for disputed areas and safe, voluntary returns | Removes one of the conflict’s most persistent political triggers |
| Stronger institutions | Courts, elections, federal-regional mechanisms and accountable security institutions | Gives actors alternatives to armed pressure |
| Regional diplomacy | Ethiopia, Eritrea and neighboring states maintaining communication and avoiding military involvement | Limits the conflict’s ability to become a wider Horn of Africa war |
1. Political dialogue has to become continuous, not crisis-driven
The most important safeguard is probably also the hardest: Ethiopia’s federal government and Tigrayan political actors need a functioning channel for resolving disputes before they become security crises.
The AU has repeatedly emphasized dialogue as the mechanism for preserving the Pretoria settlement. In March 2025, it specifically urged the parties to uphold the cessation-of-hostilities agreement and offered continued support through its High-Level Panel.
That channel needs to address substantive disputes rather than merely reaffirm the existence of the peace agreement.
Among the most important questions are political participation, regional governance, contested territory, displaced populations and security arrangements. A dialogue process that excludes the issues most likely to produce confrontation can create the appearance of engagement while leaving the underlying conflict intact.
It also needs to be broader than negotiations between a small number of political leaders. Local officials, community representatives, women, religious leaders, displaced populations and other affected communities have interests that cannot necessarily be represented by armed or political organizations.
Ethiopia’s own government has promoted national dialogue as a way of addressing longstanding political disagreements, while Tigrayan community representatives have called for broader public engagement and reconciliation.
The critical test is whether dialogue can produce decisions that participants regard as more credible than continued confrontation.
2. Security arrangements must make renewed war harder to start
Ceasefires are fragile when armed actors retain the ability to mobilize rapidly and believe that striking first could improve their bargaining position.
The Pretoria agreement made disarmament and the withdrawal of forces central to its implementation. The AU reports that the disarmament process achieved important progress, but its current documentation says implementation stalled in September 2025.
That matters because security uncertainty can become self-reinforcing.
One side keeps weapons because it fears the other side may attack. The other side interprets those weapons as evidence of hostile intentions and strengthens its own position. Political disagreement then acquires a military dimension.
A durable arrangement would therefore need more than declarations of restraint. It would require verifiable commitments covering the disposition of forces, heavy weapons, recruitment and movement of armed units, with credible monitoring and mechanisms for investigating violations.
The AU’s monitoring mechanism is particularly important because neither party should have to rely entirely on the other’s account of whether the agreement is being respected.
The objective should not be to remove all security capacity from a region overnight. It should be to create a security environment in which political actors cannot easily convert political disputes into military campaigns.
3. The territorial question cannot remain indefinitely unresolved
Territory is among the most difficult issues because it connects sovereignty, identity, security and displacement.
The post-war settlement did not produce a universally accepted political resolution of all territorial disputes. Research published in 2026 argues that unresolved control over Western Tigray, political exclusion and regional pressures have continued to reinforce one another.
For displaced families, this is not an abstract constitutional question. Territorial control determines whether people can safely return home, whether property can be reclaimed and which authorities provide security and public services.
Any sustainable settlement therefore needs mechanisms that separate immediate humanitarian needs from the longer political argument.
People should not have to wait for the final resolution of a territorial dispute before receiving protection, assistance or a pathway toward voluntary and safe return.
At the same time, returning displaced populations without adequate security guarantees could create another cycle of violence. Territorial arrangements therefore need to be connected to local security, property claims and political representation.
4. Institutions have to replace armed bargaining
The deeper lesson from Tigray is that peace cannot depend indefinitely on whether political leaders remain willing to compromise.
A stable system needs institutions capable of absorbing disputes.
That includes courts that can resolve legal disagreements, electoral mechanisms that allow political competition, federal-regional institutions that can negotiate jurisdictional disputes, and security institutions that operate under accountable civilian authority.
This is particularly important in a country where disagreements over the balance between central authority and regional autonomy have contributed to political instability. The underlying dispute is not simply between two personalities or organizations; it concerns how political power should be distributed within Ethiopia.
Institutions also need legitimacy.
A procedure that exists formally but is rejected by major political constituencies will not necessarily prevent conflict. Elections, constitutional processes and courts become stabilizing only when competing actors have sufficient confidence that losing a particular political contest will not threaten their basic security or existence.
That is why political inclusion is a security issue as much as a democratic one.
5. Regional diplomacy may be as important as Ethiopia’s internal politics
Tigray’s geography makes the conflict unusually vulnerable to regional escalation.
The renewed crisis is occurring alongside sharply deteriorating relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea. In October 2026, the African Union warned Ethiopia, Eritrea and Egypt against actions or statements that could intensify regional tensions and urged them to preserve diplomatic communication.
The danger is that a domestic Ethiopian conflict could become connected to wider disputes involving borders, the Red Sea, military alliances and the security calculations of neighboring states.
That is why regional diplomacy should operate alongside the Tigray peace process rather than waiting until fighting spreads across borders.
Eritrea is especially important. Its involvement in the 2020–2022 war demonstrated how external military participation can dramatically change the conflict’s scale. The 2022 Pretoria agreement was primarily an agreement between Ethiopia’s federal government and the TPLF, while Eritrea was not a party to it. That leaves a structural weakness: an internal peace arrangement cannot by itself settle the security concerns of an external state.
A durable strategy therefore needs parallel diplomatic channels addressing the broader Ethiopia–Eritrea relationship.
The immediate principle should be simple: neighboring governments should have incentives to reduce tensions, not opportunities to use Tigray as leverage in unrelated strategic disputes.
Humanitarian access is part of conflict prevention
Humanitarian assistance is sometimes treated as separate from political stabilization. In Tigray, the two are closely connected.
The UN has warned that renewed fighting is increasing protection risks for people displaced during the previous war and disrupting humanitarian operations. Humanitarian organizations have also faced insecurity, damaged infrastructure and restrictions on movement and communications.
Keeping humanitarian corridors open can therefore serve two purposes.
First, it reduces immediate civilian suffering. Second, it can prevent humanitarian deterioration from becoming another source of political and military escalation.
Food, medicine, banking, telecommunications and transportation are not substitutes for a political settlement. But their restoration can reduce the desperation and mistrust that make compromise more difficult.
The same principle applies to rebuilding schools, health facilities and local economies. A population that sees tangible benefits from peace has more to lose from renewed war.
Transitional justice cannot simply be postponed
Accountability is another difficult component of stabilization.
The Tigray war produced extensive allegations of serious violations against civilians. A peace process that ignores these grievances may reduce fighting without resolving the trauma and political resentment left behind.
But accountability also has to be designed carefully.
If justice is perceived as victor’s justice, it can become another instrument of political confrontation. If it is abandoned entirely, victims may conclude that peaceful institutions cannot address grave abuses.
The challenge is therefore to develop credible, impartial mechanisms that distinguish evidence-based accountability from collective punishment.
Transitional justice should not be treated as an optional addition to security arrangements. In societies emerging from mass violence, the absence of credible avenues for justice can preserve grievances long after combat has stopped.
The most important lesson from the first peace
The Pretoria agreement demonstrated that Ethiopia’s federal government and the TPLF could negotiate an end to a devastating war. Its subsequent difficulties demonstrate something equally important: ending battlefield violence and resolving the political conflict are different tasks.
The peace held for more than three years, and that should not be dismissed. The AU says the agreement produced concrete gains including disarmament steps, restored services, humanitarian access, an interim administration and economic activity.
But the return to major fighting shows that those gains were not sufficient to make renewed war prohibitively costly or politically unnecessary.
The next peace effort therefore needs stronger implementation mechanisms, faster responses to violations and a broader political process capable of dealing with disputes that the original agreement left unresolved.
Most importantly, neither side can be allowed to conclude that military success is a more reliable route to political objectives than negotiation.
What could prevent the next escalation?
The immediate priority is to stop the current fighting and reopen direct negotiations under the Pretoria framework. The AU has already called for precisely that, while the UN has backed renewed talks and de-escalation.
But a ceasefire alone will not be enough.
The stronger model would be a layered settlement: a monitored cessation of hostilities; credible security and disarmament arrangements; negotiations over territory and displaced populations; inclusive political dialogue; institutional reforms; transitional justice; and regional diplomacy designed to keep neighboring states from turning Ethiopia’s internal disputes into a wider confrontation.
The crucial question is whether these measures can be established before military calculations harden again.
The renewed war has already shown the cost of waiting. What happens next will depend less on whether Ethiopia can produce another ceasefire than on whether its political system can make the next dispute solvable without armies.