Relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea have indeed deteriorated, said Eritrea’s ambassador to South Sudan.

Yohannes Teklemichael, the Eritrean ambassador to South Sudan said this in an unusual interview on the YouTube channel of the Eritrean Embassy in Britain, which was taken hours after the video was made public, BBC Tigrinya confirmed.

Eritrean-Ethiopian relations, strained since the bloody border war two decades ago, improved after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took office. Eritrean troops supported the Ethiopian government during the two-year civil war in the northern Tigray region, which borders Eritrea. However, relations between the two countries deteriorated after the Tigray war ended. The Ethiopian government signed the Pretoria Agreement with the TPLF in November 2022, an accord that Asmara has viewed lukewarmly.

While neither Ethiopian nor Eritrean authorities have issued statements, the suspension of Ethiopian Airlines flights to and from Asmara, and the disruption of telephone connections was cited as evidence of strained relations.

In a rare interview with Eritrean Embassy Media, Eritrea’s ambassador to South Sudan, Yohannes Teklemichael, said Eritrea’s relations with South Sudan are cordial but relations with Ethiopia “are not what they used to be.”

Speaking in Tigrinya on the Eritrean Embassy’s YouTube channel in London, the ambassador directly blamed Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed for the deteriorating relations between Eritrea and Ethiopia. “The problems created by the PM in Arat Kilo have killed and buried the relationship between the people of Eritrea and Ethiopia,” he said, using unusually blunt language.

In an interview, Ambassador Yohannes criticized Abiy’s statement about his country seeking access to a port on the Red Sea, saying, “With an unrealistic dream, he now seeks to undermine Eritrea’s independence and destabilize the region.”

The ambassador has repeatedly made references to the growing tensions in the Horn of Africa and officially accused Ethiopia of contributing to instability in the region. “[The Prime Minister] … He has destabilized the region. Not only did he destabilize it, but … he’s trying to run the country based on a dream.”

This interview with Eritrea’s ambassador to South Sudan, Yohannes Teklemichael, has been removed from the YouTube channel, and the reason for its removal has not been explained. There has been no comment or explanation from the Eritrean side regarding the issues raised in the interview, nor any response from the Ethiopian side. However, on October 2024, Ethiopian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nebiat Getachew described the relationship with Asmara as “peaceful,” adding that they enjoyed “good neighbourliness and good friendship.”

Landlocked Ethiopia’s ambitions for access to a seaport have driven Somalia into closer ties with Egypt and Eritrea. Somalia is particularly angered by Ethiopia’s preliminary deal with the self-declared republic of Somaliland to lease a section of its coastline. Somalia views Somaliland as part of its territory, fueling tensions over the agreement. Eritrea has expressed “unequivocal respect for the sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity of Somalia”.