Eritrea says rapprochement with Sudan not linked to Ethiopia row boder
Oct 26, 2005 (ASMARA)– Eritrea is denying widespread speculation that its recent rapprochement with neighboring one-time foe Sudan is aimed at securing its western border in the event of new war over its southern frontier with arch-rival Ethiopia.
Instead, a senior Eritrean official said the warming of Eritrea-Sudan relations after a decade of active hostility is merely a reflection of new realities on the ground after the end of Sudan’s long-running north-south civil war this year.
“The normalisation of our ties with Sudan is because several obstacles have been solved,” said Abdalla Jaber, a senior official in Eritrea’s sole political party, the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ).
“It is because of the Naivasha agreement,” he said, referring to the January peace deal signed in Kenya that ended Sudan’s 21-year north-south civil war, a conflict in which Eritrea sided with southern rebels.
Abdalla, who spoke to AFP late Tuesday, headed an Eritrean team that made a landmark fence-mending visit to Khartoum earlier this month.
After the four-day mission, the two sides announced a “breakthrough” in ties “ending more than 10 years of estrangement” over mutual accusations of support for each other’s opposition groups.
But the visit came only months after Eritrea and Sudan were trading bitter and bellicose accusations over rebel groups in eastern Sudan and many said the trip should be seen in the context of soaring tensions between Eritrea and Ethiopia.
Diplomats and analysts noted that last June, Sudan warned that the Sudanese-Eritrean border could “explode” if Eritrea continued with alleged support for the eastern rebels.
They recalled that Asmara responded by accusing Khartoum of committing “horrendous crimes” against minority groups while a UN mediator was dispatched to calm the situation.
“Because of the tensions, they want a neutral neighbor,” said one Asmara-based foreign diplomat, referring to Sudan.
Yet Abdalla insisted they were not related and scoffed at suggestions that the rapprochement was intended to free up Eritrean troops along the Sudanese border for re-deployment for a possible new conflict with Ethiopia.
“It has no connection,” he said. “Since 1998, we have had no major forces on our border with Sudan, most are in the south. Ethiopia is our concern.”
Eritrea and Ethiopia fought a bloody two-year war over their border between 1998 and 2000 and in recent months tensions have skyrocketed amid rising fears of a new conflict.
Eritrea has repeatedly warned new conflict is looming because of Ethiopia’s refusal to accept a 2002 border delineation made by an international panel set up as part of a 2000 peace deal.
On Tuesday, UN chief Kofi Annan described the situation along the Ethiopia-Eritrea border as “seriously deteriorating” after Asmara imposed severe restrictions on UN peacekeepers monitoring a buffer zone along the frontier.
Annan called on the UN Security Council “to exert its maximum influence to avert a further deterioration of the situation and to ensure that the restrictions imposed on (UN peacekeepers) are lifted.”
(AFP/ST)