Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is expected in Nairobi this week on his first State visit since President William Ruto took over.
Two diplomatic sources told The EastAfrican the visit from Tuesday signals improved relations between Nairobi and Addis Ababa.
Dr Abiy attended Dr Ruto’s inauguration in October 2022 but has often chosen to send representatives to Nairobi for other meetings instead.
Yet Dr Ruto’s first foreign trip after that inauguration was to Addis Ababa, where he also launched the Safaricom-Ethiopia telco.
A diplomat said Dr Abiy’s initial cold stance was some sort of protest after Dr Ruto announced during the inauguration ceremony that his predecessor, Uhuru Kenyatta, would mediate the Tigray conflict alongside other conflicts in the region.
“He felt he had not been consulted and was very mad,” the source said. “However, President Ruto worked on that immediately and ensured communication channels were open to clarify anything untoward.”
Mr Kenyatta would co-mediate, under the African Union, with former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo and former South African president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, helping to reach a peace deal between the Ethiopian government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).
With that now water under the bridge, Dr Abiy’s trip was firmed up last week when senior diplomats from both sides met under the Joint Ministerial Commission (JMC), Kenya’s oldest bilateral organ with a foreign country, established in 1963 as a forum to discuss issues between the two.