FILE - Ethiopian government soldiers. AFP
What does Ethiopia want?
For months, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has been demanding access to the sea for his landlocked country, while insisting it will be through peaceful means.
Ethiopia, Africa's second most populous country with some 130 million people, lost its shoreline when Eritrea broke away in 1993.
In a statement to parliament on October 28, Abiy asserted he was "a million percent sure that Ethiopia will not remain landlocked whether anyone likes it or not."
He called for "mediation", particularly from the United States and Europe, to find a "peaceful solution".
The Eritrean government in Asmara believes Ethiopia is eyeing its port of Assab and, through its minister of information, denounced Abiy's words as "fomenting dangerous conflicts".
"(Abiy's) messaging about access to the Red Sea has been a constant for the past year," said Kjetil Tronvoll, professor at Oslo New University College and a specialist on the region.
"He is gradually building up an argument which can justify a more concrete military action, portraying Eritrea as a hostile neighbour," he said.
What are Ethiopia's accusations against Eritrea?
In early October, Ethiopia accused its neighbour, in a letter to the United Nations Secretary-General, of "actively preparing for war".
It accused Eritrea of working with the regional government in the Ethiopian region of Tigray -- where rebels fought a brutal war against the federal government in 2020-2022 -- to "destabilise and fragment" the country.
Eritrea denounced this as a "deceitful charade".
But it has forged links to the Tigray People's Liberation Front that runs that region "and other anti-government forces in Ethiopia and the diaspora," said Abel Abate Demissie, a researcher at the Chatham House think tank.
Tronvoll fears the call for mediation may be the last step before armed action, claiming he has exhausted peaceful options.
"(Abiy) is building up a case step by step of justifiable and legitimate right of self-defence... He is dead serious about it," said Tronvoll.
Will there be conflict?
Ethiopia and Eritrea fought a border war from 1998 to 2000 in which tens of thousands of people were killed.
Despite an initial rapprochement between Abiy and Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki, who has ruled with an iron fist since 1993, relations have remained strained.
Satellite images at the start of this year showed Ethiopian and Eritrean troops massing at the border.
That proved temporary and no intelligence since then has suggested an imminent conflict, a Western security source told AFP.
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