Why did Abiy Ahmed meet with Deputy Burhan in Djibouti? | news

It seems that the Ethiopian government found itself forced to calm the dispute with Sudan, after American threats that analysts say were strict and stemmed from deep concern about the future of the Bab al-Mandab Strait.

The Sudanese army accused Ethiopia of launching drone attacks on Khartoum airport last Monday, which was denied by Addis Ababa, which accused Khartoum of supporting fighters from the Tigray Liberation Front and violating Ethiopia’s territorial integrity.

These accusations were the latest in a long series of accusations between the two sides, as the Sudanese army continued to accuse Abiy Ahmed’s government of supporting the Rapid Support Forces that have been fighting against him for more than 3 years, while the Ethiopians continued to accuse the ruling Sovereignty Council in Sudan of supporting parties hostile to their country.

However, yesterday, Saturday, Djiboutian President Ismail Omar held a closed session that brought together both Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Deputy Chairman of the Sudanese Sovereignty Council, Malik Agar. A source told Al Jazeera that the two sides agreed during the meeting to work to contain the differences between them.

Ethiopian retreat

This meeting could be a prelude to resolving the differences between the two countries if Abiy Ahmed stops exporting his internal problems to Sudan, according to what political analyst Ammar Awad said in an interview with Al Jazeera Mubasher.

But the head of the Ethiopian Institute for Popular Diplomacy, Yassin Ahmed, responded to these words by saying that other parties, including Egypt and Eritrea, are trying to exploit Sudan to attack Ethiopian interests, while he believes that the Djibouti meeting may be an indication of movement towards dissolving the dispute.

He said that the whole world now knows that the solution to the Sudanese crisis has become primarily internal, because both parties to the conflict possess weapons and are stubborn in continuing the war.

American warning

As for the researcher in international and African affairs, Ibrahim Idris, he attributes Abiy Ahmed’s sitting with a property owner in Djibouti to Ethiopia’s efforts to resolve the dispute with Sudan through dialogue after the United States sent a direct and clear message to Addis Ababa not to cross the borders with neighboring countries.

The United States and the European Union are deeply concerned that the Strait of Hormuz crisis will extend to the Bab al-Mandab Strait, which may bring all countries of the world to the Horn of Africa region, says Idris.

Because of these concerns, Idris says that the United States asked Addis Ababa to stop threatening Eritrea and Somalia by obtaining a sea port, peace or war, as senior Ethiopian officials said earlier.

Rather, Washington – speaking to Idris – decided to correct its relations with the Eritrean government and ease the sanctions imposed on it because it has begun to play an important role at the present time, which is what prompted Addis Ababa to ask the President of Djibouti to try to resolve the dispute with Sudan through dialogue, it seems.

It is true that the Ethiopians are disturbed by the American message, the details of which Idris says that no one knows, but they no longer have a choice but to seek to ease these tensions, because they have become surrounded by problems on all sides due to Abiy Ahmed’s policies.

Everything that was agreed upon between Abiy Ahmed and the Tigray Liberation Front “failed miserably, and this is what prompted the Addis Ababa government to stop,” according to Idris, who said, “Abiy Ahmed must return to his first policies based on promoting peace, which no longer exist now.”

With the situation in Sudan reaching a moment of tension that threatens to expand the risks of conflict regionally and perhaps internationally across the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, the Ethiopian-Sudanese meeting in Djibouti appears, in the opinion of the same speaker, to be “an Ethiopian attempt to contain the situation after Khartoum provided evidence of the marches coming from Ethiopian territory.”

Reuters said last February that Ethiopia was hosting a training camp for thousands of fighters for the Rapid Support Forces, and that it had developed the nearby Assosa airport for use in drone operations.

Last week, Reuters quoted local residents that the recent strikes targeted military targets and civilian areas in Khartoum, which began to witness the return of citizens, ministries and international agencies since the army regained control over it in March 2025.

The attacks targeted Khartoum International Airport, which witnessed some of the first battles between the army and the Rapid Support Forces in April 2023. The bombing came a week after the airport received the first international flight in 3 years.

Sudanese army spokesman, Brigadier General Asim Awad Abdel-Wahab, said that the government has evidence that the attacks targeted several states, and that they were launched from the Ethiopian Bahir Dar Airport.