Eritrea
Shifting diplomatic alignments and border dynamics continue to shape Eritrea's regional posture.
Related Insights
Eritrea Asked the UN Security Council to Call Ethiopia's Self-Defense Claim a 'Declaration of War.' The Letter Invoked the Chapter That Can Authorize Sanctions or Force.
Eritrea's foreign minister, Osman Saleh, sent a letter to the UN Security Council on 10 October asking it to "forcefully condemn Ethiopia's deplorable declaration of war against Eritrea" and to take unspecified "deterrent measures," according to Reuters reporting carried by Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya English, Xinhua, BSS News, Anews and The Print, among others. The letter invokes Chapter VII of the UN Charter, the section that allows the Council to order measures ranging from sanctions to military action, and calls Ethiopia's claim of a right to self-defense against an Eritrean invasion "deceitful attempts to rationalize its brazen acts of war against a sovereign UN member state in self-defense terms." It arrives two days after Ethiopia's foreign minister, Gedion Timothewos, told the same Council in a letter dated 8 October that Eritrean troops and mechanized units had advanced up to 60 kilometres into Tigray, an accusation Saleh's letter answers with a mirrored charge rather than a point-by-point denial of the 60-kilometre figure or the reported fighting around Adigrat and Idaga Hamus. No outlet has yet reported the Security Council scheduling a meeting or responding to either letter, leaving two members of the same UN body formally accusing each other of aggression with the matter still undecided.
11 October 2026
Ethiopia Gave Ten Eritrean Diplomats 48 Hours to Leave. Eritrea Needed Less Than a Day to Cut Every Remaining Tie Between the Two Countries.
Ethiopia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on 1 October that it was closing its embassy in Asmara and had declared ten Eritrean diplomats in Addis Ababa, some of them accredited to the African Union, persona non grata, giving them 48 hours to leave over what it called Eritrea's 'direct and indirect acts of hostility and belligerence' and activities in breach of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. Eritrea's foreign ministry responded the same day, calling Ethiopia's move 'astounding' and declaring on social media that Asmara 'has no option but to reciprocate in kind and sever all diplomatic ties with Ethiopia with all the negative corollaries that this entails,' while accusing Addis Ababa of hosting, training and arming Eritrean opposition groups and of waging war to secure Red Sea access. It is the sharpest break between the two governments since their 2018 rapprochement, and it lands six days after Ethiopia's army chief accused Eritrea, Sudan and Egypt of arming the rebel alliance fighting federal forces in Tigray and Afar, a day after a regional governor accused Eritrean troops of trying to sever the corridor carrying most of Ethiopia's trade to Djibouti, and hours before explosions were reported at Ethiopia's Ministry of Defence in Addis Ababa.
3 October 2026
Eritrea Let the UAE Run a Military Base on Its Coast for Four Years to Help Fight the Houthis. Its Foreign Minister Just Called Abu Dhabi's Ports Strategy 'Imperialism.'
Eritrean Foreign Minister Osman Saleh told Middle East Eye in an exclusive interview conducted in Asmara and published 12 September that the United Arab Emirates is pursuing 'port imperialism' across Africa, saying Abu Dhabi's port investments in Somaliland, Puntland, Egypt and Tanzania serve strategic rather than purely commercial goals. Asked if the motive was economic, Saleh said simply, 'No.' He separately voiced concern that a potential Israeli military presence in Somaliland could draw the Horn of Africa into a wider confrontation involving Israel, Iran and Red Sea militant groups, and pointed to what he described as a growing UAE-Israel-Ethiopia convergence in the region. The remarks arrive as Ethiopia presses for access to Eritrea's Red Sea port of Assab, the same port the UAE itself leased as a military base from 2015 to 2019 to help wage the Saudi-led war against Yemen's Houthi movement, a war in which Eritrea's government now says it sees no military solution.
15 September 2026