The territorial dispute between Ethiopia's northern Amhara and Tigray regions will be settled through a referendum, the government says.
The row has threatened to disrupt the fragile peace following the end of the civil war in Tigray a year ago. Tigray controlled the fertile lands before Amhara forces seized them in 2020 during the conflict. Rights groups have accused those forces of carrying out ethnic cleansing in the disputed areas.
The disputed areas, near Ethiopia's border with Sudan, were a key flashpoint in the two-year conflict between the Tigray People's Liberation Front and the federal government.
In a lengthy report last year, rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said evidence collected through interviews showed that the disputed areas had been the site of some of the worst atrocities committed during the conflict and were being largely ignored.
The African Union envoy, former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, has said around 600,000 people died during the conflict overall. Researchers put the hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths down to fighting, starvation, and lack of health care
In Monday's statement evaluating the year since the peace deal, the government said the displaced people would be returned and the federal military would assume responsibility for local security. The federal authorities say they have "taken a position on the fate of the disputed areas to find a solution mutually beneficial to all sides."
"A direction has been put in place for a referendum to be held in accordance with the constitution," the government's communication service said.
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