Growing apprehensions are present regarding the chance of armed conflict between Horn of Africa countries, Ethiopia and the Eritrean government, as hostile rhetoric has intensified in the past few weeks.
Landlocked Ethiopia's requests for access to the sea coast through Eritrea has triggered a intense verbal exchange.
Ethiopian Prime Minister previously announced in 2023 that his nation's sea access was an existential matter, statements that Eritrean authorities ignored.
Diplomatic connections between the both governments have regularly been difficult. Following a prolonged battle for independence, Eritrea, which has a extensive Red Sea coastline, formally separated from Ethiopia in 1993, rendering it cut off from the sea.
Five years later, a military clash erupted in which numerous people lost their lives.
Abiy and military leader General Birhanu Jula have publicly asserted ownership of Eritrean coastal city of the port of Assab – about 60km from the frontier - and suggested the intention to seize it militarily.
Recently, Abiy said Ethiopia's "blunder" of losing entry to the sea as a due to Eritrean independence would be "corrected soon".
Ethiopia's ambassador to neighboring Kenya, retired Gen Bacha Debele, said that Assab was "Ethiopian property" and would be returned "usingæ¦åŠ›".
In the face of ongoing challenges from Ethiopian officials, Eritrea's response has been limited to concise remarks on social media from Communications Head Yemane Gebremeskel.
The minister has dismissed Ethiopia's push for access to the Red Sea labeling it "hazardous" and a "toxic agenda" of "irredentism" – a approach of retaking lost territory.
Government spokespeople warned on 16 September that moves to legitimise "obvious provocation" would have significant repercussions for the Ethiopian government and its regional partners and is a "boundary that should not be crossed|violated|breached".
There have been no reports of large-scale army activities in the frontier regions between the two countries.
However, in Ethiopia, state television has shown completion events of numerous trainees at different defense facilities.
The leader of human resources department of the defense force, Lt Gen Hachalu Sheleme, recently said in an discussion that the defense forces was in a "strong stance" as "numerous of recruits" were enlisting, which he said was "a signal to our enemies".
For more than half a century from the late 19th century, the territory was governed by Italian colonisers.
After Italy's defeat, it was then controlled by the British military before becoming a federated part of Ethiopia.
However in 1962 Emperor Haile Selassie I ended this arrangement and the region became fully incorporated into the Ethiopian state.
A three-decade long internal conflict followed, ending with the government's loss in the early 1990s. Independence was then endorsed by the population in a referendum in 1993.
Briefly in the 1990s, there were friendly connections between the leadership in Addis Ababa and Asmara, but they clashed over the precise positioning of their shared boundary, resulting in war in 1998.
Although this concluded in a truce in 2000, it was partially applied, and the neighbors stayed at in dispute.
This changed in 2018, when Abiy made overtures to Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki. The two agreed to a statement that the conflict was finished – a action that won Abiy the international recognition.
The neighboring states were then cooperators in the country's previous internal conflict in the northern region.
However relations have later worsened once more.
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