Ethiopia announced Friday that it withdrew support for a national, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, after his remarks accused the government of blocking humanitarian aid to the Tigray region, APA reports citing Anadolu Agency.

In a letter to the WHO’s Executive Board, the government stated its objection to Tedros’ “moral, legal and professional standing,” and claimed it “threatened” WHO’s organizational integrity.

It urged the WHO to commission an investigation on Tedros to identify his “misconduct and violation of his professional and legal responsibility.”

The letter also said the WHO chief of “interfering in the internal affairs” of Ethiopia, including relations of the East African country with Eritrea.

Ethiopia denied Thursday that it obstructed aid deliveries to Tigray, accusing Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) rebels of engaging in “serious acts that hampered food and non-food aid deliveries to the region.”

The TPLF said the accusations “makes no sense.”

Tedros urged that “humanitarian access should be allowed at all times even during conflict.”

“Even conflict cannot be an excuse because we’re delivering medicine in conflict areas while the conflict is raging so that place cannot be different. Then the other part, of course, this thing should be resolved politically, peacefully. If there is a commitment to resolve it peacefully there is a way. There is a way to resolve it peacefully and politically,” he added.

Tedros, who served as Ethiopia’s foreign minister when the TPLF dominated Ethiopian politics, became the first African WHO director in 2017 with the full support of many countries as a result of Ethiopia’s efforts.

The Executive Committee will meet at the end of January and determine new director-general candidates for election in May.

Kenya, Rwanda and Botswana previously announced their support for Tedros’ reinstatement.

Source: Azeri-Press News Agency