{"id":179493,"date":"2026-10-06T10:15:57","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T14:15:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/?p=179493"},"modified":"2026-10-06T14:00:40","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T18:00:40","slug":"abiy-ahmed-begins-new-five-year-term-and-tells-parliament-ethiopia-will-keep-pushing-for-red-sea-access","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/179493","title":{"rendered":"Abiy Ahmed Begins New Five-Year Term and Tells Parliament Ethiopia Will Keep Pushing for Red Sea Access"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Abiy

Abiy Ahmed at the Quirinale Palace in Rome, Feb. 6, 2023. [file photo] (Quirinale.it \/ Wikimedia Commons, attribution)<\/p><\/div>\n

Abiy Ahmed was sworn in for a new five-year term as Ethiopia\u2019s prime minister on Monday. In his first speech of the new mandate, he told parliament that his government will keep working to win the landlocked country an outlet to the Red Sea. The speech came at a time when fighting in Tigray is still going on, Eritrea has cut ties with Addis Ababa, and Ethiopia and Egypt have expelled each other\u2019s diplomats.<\/p>\n

The House of Peoples\u2019 Representatives appointed him during the government-formation session of the seventh parliament, which follows the June 1 general election, and he then took the oath of office, the Ethiopian News Agency reported. The state agency said more than 54 million citizens took part in that election, citing the National Election Board of Ethiopia. The new term runs to 2031, according to UMD Media.<\/p>\n

\u201cBased on the principle of give and take, we will work diligently to ensure that Ethiopia has an outlet to the sea,\u201d he said in the speech, as quoted by Al Jazeera and DW. Reuters quoted him as saying, \u201cEthiopia\u2019s modernisation cannot be realised without sea access.\u201d ENA carried a shorter version of the same promise: \u201cWe will work tirelessly to ensure Ethiopia secures a sea outlet.\u201d Al Jazeera reported that he described access to the sea as critical to Ethiopia\u2019s \u201ccivilisation.\u201d<\/p>\n

UMD Media, which followed the roughly 50-minute address, reported that he also said constitutional amendments would come \u201cbased on the recommendations of the National Dialogue,\u201d and that \u201cEthiopia will build the capability necessary to establish air superiority in our region.\u201d He did not say which parts of the constitution could change, when the process would start, or what the air power plan would involve. He also said Ethiopia would show that it has \u201ca decisive role in regional affairs, not through the generosity of others, but through its own strength,\u201d according to the same report.<\/p>\n

ENA reported that he told lawmakers the country had paid a heavy price in the past because it was not ready, and that it has now made the preparations needed to confront what he called hostile acts against Ethiopia. \u201cGetting tripped up by an obstacle once is natural, but stumbling repeatedly is not normal,\u201d he said, in remarks carried by the agency.<\/p>\n

On X, some critics claimed that the session was not live. Mesay Mekonnen (@mamamesay<\/a>) wrote in Amharic on Monday that he was \u201cgetting information that today\u2019s parliament session was pre-recorded and then broadcast,\u201d and that information from \u201cat least one elected MP\u201d confirmed it. He suggested the reason was fear of a drone attack by the forces of the opposition alliance, and added, \u201cListening to this man is torture.\u201d Journalist Mulugeta Anberber (@MulugetaAnberbr<\/a>) posted a screenshot of the broadcast and claimed that \u201cit was a Zoom meeting\u201d and that President Taye Atske-Selassie \u201cdid it via Zoom.\u201d He wrote that what was shown as if the president was sitting in the hall \u201chas been exposed by the image in the background.\u201d On Tuesday, Sirak Bahlbi (@SirakBahlbi<\/a>), a supporter of the Eritrean government who has served as a public affairs officer at Eritrea\u2019s embassy in Sweden, wrote that \u201call indications suggest that the whole drama was prerecorded\u201d and called it \u201cperhaps the most crazed speech I have heard him deliver.\u201d These claims are unverified, and Zegabi could not confirm them.<\/p>\n

The speech came one day after the leaders of Egypt, Eritrea, Somalia and Sudan met in New Alamein, Egypt, and said that governing the Red Sea is the job of the countries along its shores only. On Monday the Ethiopian Foreign Ministry answered that any talks on the Red Sea must take into account the country\u2019s \u201clegitimate interests and enduring connection\u201d to it, Al Jazeera reported. Eritrea has said it fears the authorities in Addis Ababa will try to take its port of Assab by force, while Abiy Ahmed has said Ethiopia wants sea access through peaceful means, according to Reuters.<\/p>\n

Tom Gardner (@TomGardner18<\/a>), a journalist and the author of \u201cThe Abiy Project,\u201d shared \u201cRed Sea Generation\u201d graphics from the Ethiopian state broadcaster EBC on Monday and wrote: \u201cMore helpfully de-escalatory rhetoric from Ethiopian state media.\u201d Eritrea\u2019s information minister, Yemane G. Meskel (@hawelti<\/a>) answered the Foreign Ministry statement the same day. He wrote that \u201cEthiopia enjoys unfettered access to all ports in the Horn of Africa\u201d and said Ethiopia\u2019s claim that being close to the Red Sea gives it the rights of coastal states \u201cis too ludicrous and hollow in purely legal terms to merit response.\u201d On Tuesday, the Eritrean Ministry of Information\u2019s account (@shabait<\/a>) posted an editorial in Tigrinya. It said Abiy\u2019s ruling Prosperity Party \u201cis heard boasting, without hesitation, that the war it lit against the people of Tigray will end at Assab,\u201d and it said it was important, \u201cas always,\u201d to \u201cbe ready for anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last week Ethiopia closed its embassy in Asmara and expelled 10 Eritrean diplomats, after which Eritrea said it was severing diplomatic ties. Ethiopia also expelled an Egyptian diplomat, and Egypt responded by expelling a counselor at the Ethiopian embassy in Cairo, Al Jazeera reported. The federal government in Addis Ababa has accused Eritrea, Sudan and Egypt of backing the armed opposition in Tigray, which all three deny. DW reported that on Monday a pro-government media outlet said the army had begun moving troops toward the Eritrean border after forces of the Tigray People\u2019s Liberation Front (TPLF) fell back to the area near Adigrat. Zegabi could not confirm that report.<\/p>\n

DW correspondent Solomon Muchie, who followed the swearing-in in Addis Ababa, said the new term gives the prime minister \u201cstronger political authority,\u201d but that \u201cthe country\u2019s complex internal and regional challenges could make it difficult to translate the authority into lasting stability.\u201d Abdurahman Sayed, who leads the London-based Horn of Africa Center for Regional Integration, told DW that Eritrea has \u201clegitimate concern\u201d that Ethiopia intends to occupy it or, failing that, take the port of Assab, which he noted overlooks the Bab el-Mandeb Strait at the southern entrance to the Red Sea.<\/p>\n

Some neighbors sent congratulations. Somalia\u2019s president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, who attended the Egypt meeting, wrote on X that he looks forward to working closely with Ethiopia \u201cto strengthen Somalia-Ethiopia relations,\u201d Al Jazeera reported. Burundi\u2019s president, Evariste Ndayishimiye, and African Union Commission chairperson Mahmoud Ali Youssouf also sent messages.<\/p>\n

Sources<\/h3>\n