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That delicate balance -- calling out each side without appearing to take sides -- may have hampered the U.S. response to this fast-evolving conflict. In June, the then-top U.S. diplomat for Africa, Robert Godec, told Congress the State Department was conducting a review for a genocide determination.

\"We have this fact and law-based review underway. We have pushed it at a very accelerated pace, and it is far advanced. The Secretary needs to make a decision, and when he's ready, I'm sure that will happen,\" acting Assistant Secretary Godec told the House Foreign Affairs Committee in a statement.

Since then, however, there has been no determination. That's in part, according to one source, because of U.S. concerns about Tigrayan Defense Forces' atrocities since it launched counter-offensives in June -- and about a perception in Addis that the U.S. supports the group over the federal government.

Feltman declined to speak to a genocide determination Tuesday, but he rejected that perception forcefully.

\"PHOTO:
Ben Curtis/AP
PHOTO: The city of Mekele is seen through a bullet hole in a stairway window of the Ayder Referral Hospital in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia on May 6, 2021.
>

\"This could not be further from the truth. We have consistently condemned the TPLF's expansion of the war outside Tigray, and we continue to call on the TPLF to withdraw from Afar and Amhara,\" he said.

The UN human rights office will issue a joint report with the Ethiopian government's human rights commission on Wednesday -- the only official investigation into possible war crimes that Abiy's government has allowed, although it has already been accused of trying to limit the report, according to the Associated Press.

Feltman said the U.S. would look to the report as it makes its own determinations about possible war crimes or genocide, adding, \"The Ethiopian people who have suffered are going to want to see some kind of justice, some kind of reckoning for the horrors that they've been through because of this needless conflict, and we will be looking to encourage the type of accountability and justice that the Ethiopian people have every right to expect.\"

He was clearer that the U.S. has sanctions ready to go against figures from each side: \"The United States is prepared to pursue the first sanctions... against those fueling this crisis and obstructing humanitarian operations, and we will be targeting all parties implicated,\" he said.

To date, the U.S. has only sanctioned Eritrea's top military official, Gen. Filipos Woldeyohannes, for his forces' human rights abuses. Feltman said Tuesday Eritrean troops have played an \"extremely damaging and destructive role\" and are responsible for \"some of the absolute worst, most horrifying human rights violations.\"

But it's unclear what kind of impact these diplomatic tools will have on either side. While Feltman said the conflict will end in talks no matter what -- and the leaders should spare the Ethiopian people by talking now -- it seems clear from the continued blockade and the TPLF offensive that each side still believes they can win a military victory.

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