The U.S. Department of the Treasury announced this Friday the lifting of sanctions that were imposed on the Eritrean Defense Forces and on the Popular Front for Democracy and Justice (FPDJ), the ruling party in the African country, as well as on other entities related to the Government and two high-ranking Eritrean officials.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has also decided to annul the punitive measures imposed since 2021 on Hidri Trust and Red Sea Trading Corporation (RSTC), defined as "affiliated companies" to the only party that has governed Eritrea since 1994.
Among the remaining beneficiaries of the OFAC decision are Hagos Ghebrehiwet W Kidan, economic advisor of the FPDJ and CEO of RSTC, and Abraham Kassa, identified as responsible for the National Security Office of Eritrea.
At the time, all of them were subject to sanctions by Washington due to their alleged involvement in "activities that have contributed to the crisis in northern Ethiopia or have hindered a ceasefire or a peace process to resolve that crisis," U.S. authorities stated then.
Ethiopia and Eritrea signed a historic peace agreement in 2018, which ended the 'stalemate' situation following the border war fought between 1998 and 2000, a conflict that left around 100,000 dead.
Already in October of last year, the Ethiopian government accused Eritrea of collaborating with a faction of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Tigray (TPLF) to "launch a war" against Ethiopia, following the conflict that developed between 2020 and 2022, in which government forces, then backed by Eritrea, faced the Tigrayan insurgent group.
