Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether he has had recent discussions with the governments of (a) Eritrea and (b) Ethiopia on the attack on the Tigray region launched on 20 September 2022.

The UK has noted the resumption of conflict between the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) and the Ethiopian Government. There is no military solution to this conflict - only political negotiations can resolve it.

On 22 September, the Minister for Development, Vicky Ford MP, met Ethiopian Deputy Prime Minister Demeke and discussed the impact of renewed conflict on humanitarian crisis and civilians in northern Ethiopia and reiterated calls for a truce, the restoration of humanitarian access to Tigray, and the withdrawal of Eritrean troops. I tweeted on 22 September reiterating these points. The British Embassies in Ethiopia and Eritrea are speaking regularly with their host Governments and, in the case of the Embassy in Ethiopia, the TPLF urging an end to the conflict.