After Pretoria peace deal, old enemies in Ethiopia’s Tigray find new ground

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia – When Ethiopia’s federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) signed the Pretoria Agreement in November 2022, it was meant to end two years of devastating war.

The agreement called for a permanent cessation of hostilities, the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of Tigrayan forces, political dialogue and the return of displaced people. Article 7 also required the TPLF to refrain from conscription, training, deployment and mobilisation of military forces, as well as preparations for renewed conflict.

Nearly four years later, the large-scale war has ended, but many of the disputes that fuelled it remain unresolved.

More significantly, the period since 2024 has seen the TPLF reposition itself politically and organisationally while retaining military leverage and developing new relationships.

The sequence is striking: TPLF contacts with Eritrean officials, including reported meetings in Dubai and Zalambessa; a renewed struggle over political control in Tigray; reports of recruitment and mobilisation; new clashes involving Tigrayan forces; and the emergence of Tsimdo, a loose convergence of groups opposed to the federal government.

Taken together, the developments raise a question over whether Pretoria became less a completed transition to peace than a period in which the TPLF could regroup and reposition itself while the underlying conflict remained unresolved.

There is no evidence that the TPLF entered the agreement with a predetermined plan to use it as a tactical pause. But the events since 2024 suggest that the movement has retained an organisational and security role that Pretoria was supposed to diminish.

Article 6 established the process for disarming, demobilising and reintegrating TPLF fighters. Tigrayan forces handed over heavy weapons after the agreement, and thousands of former combatants have entered demobilisation programmes.