EU urges Ethiopia, Eritrea to end border impasse

ADDIS ABABA, Sept 22 (Reuters) – The European Union urged Ethiopia and Eritrea on Wednesday to renew efforts to break a deadlock over the demarcation of their border that has sharpened tensions between the former foes.

Officials had been due to start demarcating the disputed frontier last year under a peace deal that ended the neighbours’ 1998-2000 border war, but progress has been frozen since Ethiopia objected to the new line.

“The EU calls upon both countries to use the coming six months to implement measures which may help break the current deadlock and allow demarcation to proceed expeditiously,” said an EU statement released by the Netherlands embassy in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.

The EU urged Ethiopia to accept the new border, drawn up by an independent commission under the terms of the 2000 peace deal. Ethiopia has rejected the line, saying it wrongly awards the border town of Badme, where the war started, to Eritrea.

The EU urged Eritrea to hold talks with Lloyd Axworthy, a special envoy appointed by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, to help resolve the dispute.

In July, Eritrea said it would not engage with Axworthy, warning the deadlock with Ethiopia was becoming “very dangerous”. Eritrea has repeatedly called on the outside world to press Ethiopia into accepting the ruling on the border, which was made by an independent boundary commission in the Hague.