ADDIS ABABA, June 22 (Xinhua) -- Ethiopia's rebel group, Patriotic Ginbot 7, announced on Friday that it has suspended all self-defense operations using fire arms in all regions of Ethiopia.
The rebel group, which the Ethiopian government considered as an outlawed terrorist group, has been undertaking military operations in Ethiopia's neighboring Eritrea for around a decade.
The group said in a statement on Friday that "as of today (June 22), Patriotic Ginbot 7 has suspended all self-defense operations using fire arms in all regions of Ethiopia."
The armed rebel group that Ethiopia has been condemning for smuggling of its members into the country as well as illegal armaments to create chaos in Ethiopia also indicated that its forces "have received strict orders to refrain from any form of armed resistance."
According to the statement, the major reasons behind the armed rebel group's decision to suspend its operations are the ongoing socioeconomic and political transformations in the East African country, attributed to the decisions taken by Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.
The group further noted that the actions taken by Ahmed "have given us a ray of hope that peaceful transition to genuine democracy, our long-standing objective, is a real possibility."
"The unilateral step also considers our role in helping, guiding and encouraging the peaceful struggle underway in Ethiopia," the statement read.
The Ethiopian government has recently released the group's second highest leader, Andargachew Tsige, after years of imprisonment in the country.
Tsige, a British citizen of Ethiopian origin, has been serving a prison sentence since June 2014, for leading and directing an outlawed group, based mainly in Ethiopia's arch-foe Eritrea.
Ethiopia and Eritrea are also currently working to resolve their two-decade long animosity as Eritrean President, Isaias Afwerki, on Wednesday broke two weeks of Eritrean silence to Ethiopia's offer to unconditionally implement the decisions of peace agreement that ended a two-year border war from 1998-2000, which is estimated to have killed 70,000 people from both sides.
