Ethiopia tells Eritrea to avoid “military steps”
ADDIS ABABA, Dec 13 (Reuters) – Ethiopia warned neighbouring Eritrea on Monday that any attempt to turn tough talk over a simmering border row into military action could endanger peace in the region.
Prime Minister Meles Zenawi was referring to an Eritrean statement on Dec. 4 that said Asmara would not accept Ethiopia’s forcible occupation of its land forever and the time for diplomatic words was past.
“I very much hope that those statements (from Eritrea) would be limited to the rhetorical level because if they go beyond the rhetorical they can seriously endanger the peace of the region,” Meles said in answer to questions at a news conference.
“The only way forward is through dialogue and by addressing the root causes of the problem. I do not believe unilateral military steps are conducive to peace in our region,” he added.
Eritrea insists that Ethiopia accept in full a 2002 ruling by an independent boundary commission on the dispute, which has simmered ever since the two countries fought a 1998-2000 war in which about 70,000 people were killed.
Eritrea has long accepted the border ruling it its entirety.
Ethiopia said last month it had finally accepted in principle the commission’s ruling, which said the prized town of Badme lay in Eritrea, not in Ethiopia which currently holds it.
Ethiopia’s surprise announcement added, however, that Addis Ababa wanted dialogue with Asmara on how to implement the ruling in the estimated 15 percent of the border that is contentious.
That statement has been widely interpreted as a call for negotiations over the border’s most contentious areas. The international community says that would go against promises both countries made to be bound by the commission’s ruling.
In Asmara, Yemane Ghebremeskel, director in the office of Eritrean President Isayas Afewerki, said of Meles’s comments: “No self-respecting country can accept that its territory is occupied by force.”
The Eritrean statement on Dec. 4 reads in part: “We cannot accept the logic of force and accommodate Ethiopia’s forcible occupation of our territory.
“We cannot accept the dislocation of our people and condemn them to live in makeshift camps forever. We are long past the time for toothless diplomatic words.”
Visiting German President Horst Koehler, appearing at the news conference with Meles, said Berlin was cancelling 67 million euros ($89 million) of Ethiopian debt to support economic reform in the country, sub-Saharan Africa’s second most populous.