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The Ethiopian government said Thursday it has appointed a senior official in the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) as head of an interim government for Tigray after a peace deal ended a brutal two-year conflict.
The announcement comes just a day after parliament removed the TPLF from an official list of terrorist organisations, a move it said would help bolster the November 2022 agreement between the rebels and the federal government.
“Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has appointed Getachew Reda as president of the Tigray region’s interim administration,” Abiy’s office said in a statement posted on Twitter.
There was no immediate response to the announcement from the TPLF or Getachew himself.
The formation of a transitional government for Ethiopia’s northernmost region and the delisting of the TPLF as a terrorist group were among the key provisions of the peace deal signed in South Africa’s capital Pretoria.
The agreement had stipulated the establishment of an “inclusive” interim regional administration until elections can be held.
The TPLF, which once dominated Ethiopian politics, had been officially designated a terrorist organisation in May 2021, six months after the Tigray war began.
Public face of TPLF
Getachew, adviser to TPLF leader Debretsion Gebremichael, also once served as communications minister in the federal government under prime minister Hailemariam Desalegn who governed from 2012 to 2018.
The public face of the TPLF, Getachew signed the African Union-brokered deal in Pretoria along with Abiy’s national security adviser Redwan Hussein.
During the conflict, the TPLF briefly came close to marching on the capital Addis Ababa but was beaten back by forces loyal to Abiy.
Under the agreement, the TPLF agreed to disarm in return for the restoration of access to Tigray, which was…
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