Ethiopia determined to resolve border row with Eritrea through dialogue

ADDIS ABABA, Sept 28 (AFP) — Ethiopia is determined to resolve a border row with Eritrea through dialogue, officials said on Tuesday, after Prime Minister Meles and United Nations envoy Lloyd Axworthy met in Addis Ababa.

“It is the position of Ethiopia that the border dispute could be addressed through dialogue and negotiations,” a foreign ministry official said.

Meles assured Axworthy, former Canadian foreign minister, of Ethiopia’s willingness to work with him to end the deadlock in the crucial peace process between the Horn of Africa neighbours, the official added.

The two countries fought a devastating two-year war starting 1998 over a dispute in their common border.

In 2002, a special Boundary Commission demarcated a 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) border, in line with a peace accord signed two years earlier, but Addis Ababa rejected it in September 2003 as “unjust” mainly because it failed to award the area of Badme, the original flashpoint of the war, to Ethiopia.

Eritrea has rejected Ethiopia’s calls for dialogue, refused to meet Axworthy and has repeatedly demanded that the international community take action against what it sees as Addis Ababa’s flouting of international law.