Ethiopia says EU favours its peace plan to end row with Eritrea

Nov 26, 2005 (ADDIS ABABA) — Speaker of the Ethiopian parliament, Ambassador Teshome Toga, has said the European Commission’s urgent call on the need to implement the peace proposal the Ethiopian Government puts forward to resolve the Ethio-Eritrea dispute peacefully.

The House speaker declares this latest development upon his arrival here earlier on Saturday after attending an ACP-EU joint parliamentary conference held in Britain. He attended the conference at the head of a high level parliamentary delegation drawn from the House of Peoples’ Representatives.

According to the official news agency ENA, this major multilateral parliamentary meeting has also provided the opportunity whereby most of the participants have come to understand the real picture of the situation that came about after the elections in Ethiopia.

He said, during the discussion forums of the ACP-EU joint parliamentary conference, Ethiopia and Eritrea raised different perspectives concerning the current situation between the two countries.

Accordingly, the blame game by the Eritrean delegation which contained allegations that Ethiopia rejected the Boundary Commission’s ruling fell short of convincing the participants, he said.

The Ethiopian delegation presented a briefing that the Ethiopian Government in its five-point peace proposal expressed acceptance in principle of the ruling even against the problems contained in the decision of the Boundary Commission.

The delegation made it once again clear that the problem between the two countries calls for dialogue, for which Ethiopia has unequivocally expressed readiness, he said. The briefing underscored the impossibility of any resolution to the problem other than through peaceful means.

The delegation also raised the issue of how the Eritrean Government posed difficulty in the operations of the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea by prohibiting helicopter flights in the Temporary Security Zone, he said.

The European Commission on the occasion expressed that posing straining conditions in the security zone would not be accepted. It also urged that the peace proposal put forth by the Ethiopian Government must be implemented, he noted.

The Commission, according to Ambassador Teshome, also urged the Eritrean Government to refrain from posing nags in the operations of UNMEE.

He said, the joint parliamentary council holds that Ethiopia and Eritrea could resolve their border dispute only through dialogue, and unequivocally rejected any move that might lead to war.

Meanwhile, the Ethiopian parliamentary delegation has also provided briefings at the conference and sideline events about the realities of the situation in the aftermath of the elections in Ethiopia. The delegation also distributed various written materials related to the elections, including the efforts deployed to hold peaceful and democratic elections, he indicated.

In this connection, the delegation made practical presentations of the efforts made by the Government to respond in a democratic way to issues raised by oppositions, he said.

The delegation made the conference participants to understand that even in the face of street acts instigated by the oppositions, the Government has been handling the problem through democratic means, he said. As part of these efforts, the cases of those responsible for the street violence are now being tried in court, he said.

The delegation provided a thorough demonstration of the efforts being made at the level of both the executive and legislature to settle the post election problems, he said.

The delegation briefed the conference about the independent inquiry commission assigned to look into the causes of the post election problem and the government measure, he said.

After the briefing, it was evident that most of the conference participants have come to understanding of the real picture of the post election situation in Ethiopia. It was also evident that the peace proposal of the Ethiopian government to resolve the Ethio-Eritrean dispute has wide acceptance, he indicated.

The conference deliberated on the role national parliaments could play in the realization of the Cotounou agreement signed earlier under the framework of the ACP-EU partnership.

This 10th ACP-EU joint parliamentary conference was held for ten days.

(ENA)