The Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) has said the split in the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) has exposed the lack of agreement within the ruling party on the peace agreement with Eritrea.

A statement released on Monday said the crisis in the TPLF, the dominant party in the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) had "exposed the absence of a consensus within the ruling party regarding the very agreement concluded to achieve lasting peace between the two states".

It said the problem within the leadership was based on a lack of democracy and a wish to "form a dominant relationship outside the borders of Ethiopia". The OLF called on the international community to put pressure on the Ethiopian government to "close the books on its futile practice of dominating other peoples... and commit itself to a comprehensive resolution of conflicts in Ethiopia".

OLF spokesman Lencho Bati told IRIN that the leader of the group opposing Prime Minister Meles Zenawi represented the 'Greater Tigray' group. "The Siye Abraha group dreams of the greater Semite empire... and was key in the mishandling of the conflict with Eritrea," Bati said.

He said when the OLF was in the coalition government in 1991-92, it had "rough" relations with Siye Abraha, then minister of defence, who "was responsible for the military campaign in Oromiya".

However, Bati said Meles was not absolved, because he had put Siye on a Tigray war council, consisting of eight people, charged with handling the Eritrean conflict. Bati said the effect of Siye's defection would be to make peace more fragile, as he would try to attract support from Ethiopian nationalists in relation to the border war, particularly among the Amhara opposition - which had always opposed Eritrean independence.

The Ethiopian government told IRIN that it considered the OLF a terrorist organisation, and that the spokesman was not proven to be representative of any interests in Ethiopia.