The November 2022 Pretoria Agreement was supposed to end the war in Tigray. It didn't hold. Renewed fighting between Ethiopia's federal government and the TPLF now threatens to pull in Eritrea and destabilise the wider Horn of Africa. The question Al Jazeera's analysis poses is whether the UAE and Saudi Arabia — two Gulf powers with deep commercial and strategic interests in the region — can do anything about it. The UAE's position is the clearest on paper. On September 25, Sheikh Shakhboot bin Nahyan Al Nahyan condemned TPLF attacks on federal forces, reaffirmed support for Ethiopia's sovereignty, and called for de-escalation. Abu Dhabi's commercial footprint reinforces the alignment: DP World operates Berbera port in Somaliland, and a 2025 shipping route connects it with Jebel Ali, providing landlocked Ethiopia an alternative to its near-total dependence on Djibouti. But public solidarity is not operational leverage. Nothing in the available evidence suggests the UAE can influence the TPLF, restrain Eritrea, or alter Addis Ababa's military calculus. Saudi Arabia presents an even more ambiguous picture. Riyadh has not publicly commented on the renewed fighting. It previously brokered the Ethiopia-Eritrea rapprochement and reportedly offered to mediate between the two countries in 2025. But a June 2026 SWP analysis noted that earlier Saudi mediation efforts failed in part because they did not address Ethiopia's interest in the Eritrean port of Assab — the core territorial irritant. An August 2026 Soufan Center assessment described Saudi Arabia and Egypt as aligned with Eritrea in opposing Ethiopia's Red Sea ambitions, complicating any mediation posture. Egypt adds a third layer of pressure. Cairo's dispute with Addis Ababa over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is well established, and its growing relationship with Eritrea — highlighted by a June 2026 el-Sisi/Afwerki summit — positions it on the opposite side of Ethiopia's maritime aspirations. Ethiopia's army chief, Field Marshal Birhanu Jula, accused Egypt and Sudan of supporting the TPLF and other armed groups in September, though he offered no evidence. Egypt's Foreign Ministry rejected the allegations without addressing the specific claim. The structural problem is that external powers' interests cut in contradictory directions. The UAE wants Ethiopian stability to protect commercial corridors. Saudi Arabia wants Red Sea security but is regionally aligned with Eritrea. Egypt wants to constrain Ethiopian power projection. Eritrea wants sovereignty over its coastline, including Assab. Ethiopia wants maritime access. These interests do not converge toward a single settlement, and no external actor has demonstrated the capacity to impose one. The Pretoria Agreement remains the nominal framework for peace in Tigray, but renewed fighting exposes its fragility. The underlying disputes — Ethiopia's demand for sea access, Eritrea's sovereignty concerns, Egypt's Nile interests — predate this round of fighting and will outlast it. A durable settlement requires the parties themselves to negotiate, and the Gulf powers at best offer channels for engagement, not mechanisms for resolution. What the analysis ultimately reveals is a pattern common in the Horn of Africa: external powers project influence through statements, port deals, and diplomatic credentials, but the fighting on the ground is driven by domestic and bilateral dynamics that no amount of Gulf diplomacy has yet proven able to redirect.
