Ambassador Biruk Mekonnen pushes back on a UK editorial, arguing Eritrea's actions and the context of Abiy's Nobel win are being overlooked.
Ethiopia's ambassador to the United Kingdom is challenging how the Horn of Africa's most closely watched crisis is being told abroad. Biruk Mekonnen has responded to a recent editorial on the war in Tigray, saying it gives an incomplete picture and puts too much focus on Ethiopia while giving other actors too little scrutiny.
His sharpest objection concerns the editorial's opening nod to the Nobel Peace Prize. The piece suggested the committee would hope its next pick "ages better" than the 2019 choice. Mekonnen argues that this framing invites readers to doubt Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's award because of the conflict that broke out a year later.
The ambassador's case is that the two things should be kept apart. In his telling, Abiy was honoured for his push to make peace with Eritrea, and the later war in Tigray does not wipe out that achievement. Nor, he says, does it prove on its own that the prize was undeserved.
This is one side of a deeply contested story, and the letter shows how bitterly the narrative around Tigray is still being fought, in capitals and in the international press. Mekonnen's message is that any serious account of the conflict has to look at Eritrea's conduct, not only Addis Ababa's.
