Ethiopian security forces have killed the man accused of orchestrating a failed coup d’etat over the weekend.

General Asamnew Tsige allegedly led the coup attempt in the northern Amhara region and he was shot on Monday near the state capital Bahir Dar, the prime minister’s press secretary, Negussu Tilahun, told Reuters news agency.

Tilahun declined to give any other details.

“Asaminew Tsige – who has been in hiding since the failed coup attempt over the weekend – has been shot dead,” state broadcaster EBC reported.

The failed putsch on Saturday led to the killing of five senior officials, including the army chief of staff. The latest to die was the attorney-general of Amhara state, Migbara Kebede, who succumbed to his wounds on Monday.

Asamnew had been on the run with some of his supporters while other plotters have been arrested.

The reasons behind the attempted coup in the state remain unclear, although it may have been a reaction from Asamnew to a plan by state officials to rein him in after they were alarmed by reports of his ethnic rhetoric and recruitment of militias.

Brigadier-General Tefera Mamo, head of special forces in Amhara, told state television on Sunday “most of the people who attempted the coup have been arrested, although there are a few still at large”.

‘Hit squad’

Saturday’s violence unfolded in two separate attacks.

According to a government spokeswoman Billene Seyoum, a “hit squad” led by Asamnew burst into a meeting in the state offices in Bahir Dar – 500km north of the capital Addis Ababa – and shot dead regional government President Ambachew Mekonnen and his adviser Ezez Wassie.

“Several hours later, in what seems like a coordinated attack, the chief of staff of the national security forces, Seare Mekonnen, was killed in his home by his bodyguard in Addis Ababa,” Seyoum said.

Asamnew had told the Amhara people to arm themselves and prepare for fighting against other groups, in a video spread on Facebook a week earlier.

The general had been released from prison last year after receiving an amnesty for a similar coup attempt.

Long-simmering ethnic tensions in Amhara and other areas has surged since Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed launched reforms. At least 2.4 million people have fled fighting, according to the United Nations.

Access to the internet appeared to be blocked across Ethiopia on Monday, users reported. The streets of the capital Addis Ababa appeared calm.

Powerful enemies

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has pushed through sweeping changes since coming to power in April last year, making peace with Eritrea, reining in the security services, releasing political prisoners and lifting bans on some outlawed separatist groups.

The reforms in Africa’s second-most populous country have won him widespread international praise.

But his shake-up of the military and intelligence services has earned him powerful enemies at home, while his government is struggling to contain figures in Ethiopia’s myriad ethnic groups fighting the federal government and each other for greater influence and resources.

Monday was a national day of mourning following Saturday’s coup attempt.

US President Donald Trump said on Sunday he was not seeking war with Tehran, as he dispatched two top officials to the Middle East amid heightened tensions.

The downing of a US surveillance drone on Thursday by Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards had brought the two foes to the brink of war. Tehran said the drone violated its airspace but Washington insisted it was flying over international waters in the Gulf.

Trump earlier said that he called off a military strike to retaliate for the downing of the unmanned aircraft out of concern it would have been a disproportionate response.

“I’m not looking for war,” Trump said on NBC’s Meet the Press programme.

The US president has indicated that he would also be prepared to seek a deal to bolster Iran’s flagging economy, an apparent move to defuse tensions.

“I think they want to negotiate. And I think they want to make a deal. And my deal is nuclear. Look, they’re not going to have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said.

Last year Trump withdrew the US from a 2015 accord between Iran and world powers that curbed Tehran’s nuclear programme in exchange for easing sanctions. Relations in the region have worsened significantly since then.

‘Negotiate with no preconditions’

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is on his way to close US allies Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates (UAE), repeated to reporters on Sunday that Washington wanted talks with Tehran.

“We’re prepared to negotiate with no preconditions,” he said. “They know precisely how to find us. I am confident that at the very moment they’re ready to truly engage with us we’ll be able to begin these conversations. I’m looking forward to that day.”

If a conflict breaks out in the region, no country would be able to manage its scope and timing

Iran’s Major General Gholamali Rashid

Pompeo also said “significant” sanctions on Iran would be announced on Monday aimed at further choking off resources that Tehran uses to fund its activities in the region.

“We are going to deny them the resources they need to do that, thereby keeping American interests and American people safe all around the world,” Pompeo said before leaving for the Middle East.

Iran played down the impact of any new US sanctions. They were “just propaganda, as all sanctions … have been imposed and there are no more sanctions left,” state-run news agency IRIB quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi as saying.

Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons and refers to a fatwa or religious decree issued in the early 2000s by Iran’s top authority Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that bans the development or use of nuclear weapons.

But a hawk in Trump administration, National Security Adviser John Bolton, sought to maintain military pressure on Iran.

“Neither Iran nor any other hostile actor should mistake US prudence and discretion for weakness. No one has granted them a hunting license in the Middle East,” Bolton said during a visit to Israel.

Iran has said it would respond firmly to any threat and warned on Sunday of the risks of a military confrontation.

“If a conflict breaks out in the region, no country would be able to manage its scope and timing,” Major General Gholamali Rashid said, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.

“The American government must act responsibly to protect the lives of American troops by avoiding misconduct in the region.”

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani accused the Americans of stoking tensions through what Iran has called the violation of its airspace by the US military drone, Fars reported.

Diplomatic efforts

Diplomatic efforts are under way to ease tensions following attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf in recent weeks that the US blames on Iran and the shooting down of the drone last week. Tehran has denied involvement in the tanker attacks, which no one has claimed responsibility for.

Andrew Murrison, Britain’s minister for the Middle East and North Africa, said on Sunday that he had “open, frank and constructive” talks with Iranian government representatives in Tehran.

“I reiterated the UK’s assessment that Iran almost certainly bears responsibility for recent attacks on tankers in the Gulf of Oman,” and called for such activity to stop, Murrison said.

Britain, France, Germany and the European Union are signatories to the 2015 deal and Tehran wants the Europeans to shield Iran from the Trump administration’s sanctions through a trade mechanism.

After the talks with Murrison, Iran said it would not back down from its decision in May to reduce some of its commitments under the pact, state TV quoted Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi as saying.

“The European signatories of the deal lack the will to save the deal. Our decision to decrease our commitment to the deal is a national decision and it is irreversible as long as our demands are not met,” Araqchi said.

Another source of regional tension is the more than four-year-old Saudi-UAE led war in Yemen that has pushed millions towards the brink of famine.

In recent weeks, the Houthis who have been fighting the Saudi-led coalition, have stepped up attacks on Saudi border regions. In the latest attack, one person was killed and seven others wounded in an attack on Abha airport close to the Yemen border.

The Saudis-UAE coalition intervened in Yemen in 2015 to try to restore the internationally recognised President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi who was ousted from power by the Iran-aligned Houthis in late 2014.

Sudan’s military has rejected Ethiopia’s proposal to end the political deadlock over the composition of the country’s transitional government.

The ruling Transitional Military Council (TMC) and the opposition coalition have been wrangling for weeks over what form Sudan’s transitional government should take after the military deposed long-time President Omar al-Bashir on April 11.

Ethiopia’s proposal, which the opposition coalition has agreed to, suggests that a ruling sovereign council would be made up of seven civilians and seven members of the military, with one additional seat reserved for an impartial individual, according to Reuters.

The TMC spokesman, Lieutenant General Shams El Din Kabbashi, instead said on Sunday that he agreed in principle to the African Union (AU) plan.

“The African Union’s initiative came first,” said Kabbashi, adding that the council had not studied the Ethiopian initiative, which he described as unilateral.

Details of the AU proposal were not immediately known.

Kabbashi said that Ethiopia and the AU needed to unify their efforts to mediate between the council and the opposition coalition spearheading months-long pro-democracy protests.

“We asked the mediators to unite their efforts and submit a joint paper as soon as possible to return the parties to negotiations,” Kabbashi said.

‘Delay tactics’

Jon Temin, the Africa Director at Freedom House, a non-governmental body, said the military appears to be stalling for time.

“I would characterise it as classic Sudanese delay tactics. And we have seen this before from previous regime trying to play mediators off against each other to buy time and have this sort of circular conversation and ultimately end up going nowhere,” he said.

Talks between the ruling generals and the Forces for Freedom and Change coalition collapsed when security forces stormed a protest sit-in outside the Defence Ministry on June 3, killing dozens.

The army later expressed “regret” over the “excesses” that happened on June 3.

The makeup of the sovereign council was the main outstanding sticking point between the two sides before the talks collapsed. The military council cancelled all agreements it had reached with the coalition after the sit-in’s disperal.

Ethiopia and the AU have stepped up diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis in Sudan which has been wracked by tensions between the protest leaders and generals.

An attempted coup in Ethiopia on Sunday has posed hurdles for Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who tried to mediate to resolve the deadlock.

“Certainly the prime minister [Abiy] has a lot on his plate given develoments today and yesetrday,” Temin told Al Jazeera from Arlingoton Virginia.

“I think Ethiopia probably is about as good among the regional countries a mediator one can hope for, but they do not have leverage on their own.

“They need the influence of Saudi Arabia and the UAE and probably the US to change the calculations of the military in particular. And it remains to be seen if those countries are going to engage in a more productive manner,” he said.

“Saudi and the UAE support the military government as well as Egypt.”

The two oil-rich Gulf countries between them pledged $3bn in financial and material support to Sudan in late April.

The ruling military council however, has denied Saudi Arabia and the UAE have “dictated political or economic conditions” on the country.

Temin said that the US at least in its rhetoric has been “forceful” in support for a move towards “civilian rule”.

“But the question is whether the US is actually going to put actual muscle behind that.

“So far we have not seen much of it.”

Analysts have rebuked the economic part of the United States‘ Middle East peace plan for failing to address the main problem that has heavily curbed the Palestinian economy – the 52-year-old Israeli military occupation over the Palestinian territories.

The economic plan was released by the White House on Saturday and is set to be presented during a US-led workshop in Bahrain on June 25-26.

When the document was released, many noticed that the 40-page plan is void of any political context with the words “occupation”, “freedom”, “equality”, “blockade” missing.

“The absence of those words is actually quite glaring and it’s very indicative of what they see is the issue,” Diana Buttu a Haifa-based analyst and former legal adviser to Palestinian peace negotiators told Al Jazeera.

“They’ve put together this optimal, pie-in-the-sky plan that any person who’s involved in economic development would love to see. But it’s not applicable to Palestine because they’ve taken away the political context.”

At the heart of the plan is a proposed $50bn investment fund which would be split between Palestinians in the occupied territories (more than half of the total amount) and its neighbours Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan.

The fund will be used for 179 infrastructure and business projects, including building up the Palestinians’ tourism sector.

However, it doesn’t address the obstacles to freedom of movement that Palestinians face, living under the 12-year Israeli-Egyptian blockade on the Gaza Strip, or under occupation in the West Bank, surrounded by illegal Israeli settlements, deeming it a non-starter for many across the board.

The Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited rule in some areas of the West Bank, and Hamas, which governs Gaza, have both staunchly rejected the plan.

“Is Israel ever going to allow for the movement of goods? No. Is Israel going to allow this plan to be implemented? No. Can there be economic development under occupation? Again, the answer is no,” Buttu said.

Many have lamented that the plan recycled old ideas such as the proposed $5bn transportation corridor which would connect the occupied West Bank to the besieged Gaza Strip.

The idea for a transportation corridor first emerged around 2005, when the RAND research organisation proposed to build “The Arc” rail line joining Gaza with other cities in the West Bank, intended to form Palestinian congruity and create conditions for economic growth and population growth.

The project never materialised due to complications.

‘Cruelly ironic’

“[Kushner’s economic plan] a mish-mash of old ideas, not anything new. [The plan] was portrayed as a fresh new perspective, which is simply not the case,” Yara Hawari, a Palestine policy fellow at Al-Shabaka told Al Jazeera.

“You’ll notice that the pitches they use in the plan are pitches from people from USAID programs, the very programs that the Trump administration cut, which is cruelly ironic.

“Convincing Palestinians of this is basically convincing them to take economic incentives in exchange for their rights,” Hawari said.

A UN report in 2016 found that the economy of the occupied Palestinian territories would be at least twice as large if the illegal Israeli military occupation was lifted.

“Occupation imposes a heavy cost” the report read citing Israeli “restrictions on the movement of people and goods; systematic erosion and destruction of the productive base; losses of land, water and other natural resources”, as some of the main factors hindering the territories’ ability to thrive.

It also added that the separation of the Palestinian market from international markets, the blockade on Gaza, expansion of illegal Israeli settlements and the construction of the separation wall on Palestinian land, as further impediments to the Palestinian economy.

Under international law, Israel as an occupier is obliged to foster economic development for Palestinians, whose territory it occupies.

Palestine’s economy isn’t faltering because of a lack of investments, but due to the occupation, analysts say.

“[The plan is] a list of all the things that we’ve been working on for the past 25 years and they have failed because of Israel’s military occupation which this economic plan totally ignores, as if it doesn’t exist,” analyst Sam Bahour told Al Jazeera.

“We don’t need an economic workshop to point to us to great projects [that can help] the Palestinian economy. We already know what those are. What we need to look at is how we can remove the restrictions that have been placed on us by Israel with the total support of the US,” Bahour said.

In a blog post, Bahour has listed101 actions Israel can take to reduce tension created by occupation on the ground, yet the economic plan includes ideas such as a new university and bringing “5G telecommunications services” to Palestinians.

It took 12 years just to introduce 3G frequencies to Palestine just last year, Bahour noted.

Analyst Nur Arafeh has detailed how, since the Israeli occupation began in 1967, Israel has in fact sought to incorporate the occupied territories’ economy into its own, while allowing for maximum expropriation of land.

Palestinians absent

Several prominent Palestinian businessmen declined the US’ invitation to participate in the conference. 

The Palestinian Authority has said it was not consulted about the plan and will not be attending the conference.

The money raised for the economic plan would reportedly be placed in a fund administered by a multinational development bank and the funds would be managed by an appointed board of governors.

$15bn would come from grants, $25bn in subsidised loans and about $11bn would come from private capital.

Notably, there is no mention of Palestinians managing the money.

The plan itself repeatedly mentions “applicable Palestinian authorities”, Bahour noted, rather than established entities such as the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The US closed the PLO’s office in Washington DC in 2018, while the US does not recognise the State of Palestine.

Kushner has in the past voiced his opinion that Palestinians deserve “self-determination” but are not yet capable of governing themselves.

“It’s a very colonial approach, that Palestinians can’t govern themselves so we need to have a separate entity that’s able to manage the funds,” Buttu said.

“Usually when you look at economic development you look at the framework and context of states and yet they’re trying to create a plan that doesn’t at all involve any state, it doesn’t involve the Palestinian Authority. In fact [Kushner’s] trying to go around them.

“This all makes a very glossy, nice, pretty 38-page brochure, but in terms of the substance, it’s never going to see the light of day because they refuse to address the political circumstances, that of occupation and denial of freedom.”