July 10, 2025 (ADDIS ABABA) – Ethiopia on Thursday denied reports of military movements in the disputed al-Fashqa border region with Sudan, saying its army was not active in the area.

“Ethiopia renews its commitment to a policy of good neighbourliness and de-escalation,” foreign ministry spokesman Nebiat Getachew told a news conference. He said his country’s relations with its neighbours were based on mutual respect and mutual benefit.

In 2020, Sudan’s army retook control of approximately 90% of the agricultural land in Al-Fashqa, an area that Ethiopian farmers had settled for over 25 years.

On July 4, a Sudanese official accused Ethiopian militias, backed by the army, of new incursions into the border region.

Mubarak al-Nur, deputy head of the Eastern Sudan Coordination Committee, told the Sudan Tribune that Ethiopian militias had made “a new incursion into the same lands that were previously recovered.”

He said Ethiopian farmers had returned to the area and were clearing land under the protection of the Ethiopian army, after Sudanese farmers had been expelled.

Separately, Getachew said Ethiopia’s “quiet diplomacy” had prevented the issue of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) from being included on the U.N. Security Council’s agenda.

He said Ethiopia had countered what he called “false propaganda” from Egypt about the dam’s threat and that the dam would be officially inaugurated in September.

Getachew called for the dam to be a point of cooperation, not conflict, between Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt. He stated that Ethiopia remained committed to dialogue and believed the dam would not cause any harm, but could serve as a model for regional development.