Ethiopia Plans National Dialog in Bid to Defuse Tensions

  • Talks set to get under way next month, Abiy’s office says
  • Conflict has been raging in northern Ethiopia for nine months

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed

Photographer: Jemal Countess/Getty Images

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Ethiopia will begin holding a national dialog in September to address grievances that have undermined stability in the Horn of Africa nation, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s office said.

A roadmap for the talks will be announced this month and a structure will then be put in place to facilitate them, Billene Seyoum, Abiy’s spokeswoman, told reporters in the capital, Addis Ababa, on Friday. The discussions form part of a reform process the government embarked upon three years ago, she said, without saying who will participate.