ADDIS ABABA, Sept 3 (Reuters) – Ethiopia’s state-owned carrier Ethiopian Airlines said it has suspended flights to neighbouring Eritrea, citing unspecified difficult operating conditions.

Eritrea had previously said it would suspend all Ethiopian Airlines flights at the end of this month.

Flights from Ethiopia to Eritrea had resumed in 2018 after two decades, following a peace deal and resumption of diplomatic relations between the two neighbours that earned Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed a Nobel peace prize a year later.

Five diplomats told Reuters the suspension was a tangible signal that the relationship between Asmara and Addis had soured significantly, but said the risk of conflict resuming was unlikely for now.

The two countries had previously severed ties in 1998, when a two-year war between the two nations started over their disputed border.

Eritrea fought alongside Ethiopia in a war that erupted in November 2020 against regional forces from Ethiopia’s Tigray region, but relations soured once again after Asmara was excluded from the peace talks that ended that conflict two years later, and because some of its troops remain in Tigray.

“Ethiopian Airlines regrets to inform its valued customers travelling to/from Asmara that it has suspended its flights to Asmara effective Sept.3 … due to very difficult operating conditions it has encountered in Eritrea that are beyond its control,” Ethiopian Airlines said in a statement late on Monday.

The airline said it would try to rebook affected passengers on other airlines at no additional cost or offer refunds, but did not give more details on the conditions it was referring to

Eritrea Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ethiopian Airlines is ranked the largest in Africa by revenue and profit by the global industry body International Air Transport Association.

(Reporting by Dawit Endeshaw in Addis Ababa and Giulia Paravicini in Nairobi; Writing by George Obulutsa; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)