Egyptian, Eritrean presidents discuss tension with Ethiopia
Dec 22, 2005 (CAIRO) — Summit talks held on Thursday between Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his Eritrean counterpart Isayas Afewerki mainly dealt with the current escalation between Eritrea and Ethiopia and border demarcation between them in light of Algeria agreement.
The two leaders also probed Egyptian-Eritrean relations in different fields, Egyptian presidential spokesman Sulayman Awad told reporters following the Egyptian-Eritrean summit.
President Mubarak is very interested in halting escalation between Eritrea and Ethiopia, he said, noting that this crisis was one of the issues which UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan tackled with President Mubarak over the phone on Wednesday 21 December.
According to the Egyptian news agency MENA, president Mubarak is exerting his utmost to contain the Eritrean-Ethiopian escalation so the two countries would not be dragged into military confrontation, as happened in 1998 and 2000.
During his meeting with Mubarak, Eritrean President Isayas Afewerki stressed his country’s insistence to implement UN Security Council Resolution 1640, issued last month, on demarcating borders between Eritrea and Ethiopia, noted presidential spokesman Awad.
He added that, according to unofficial UN talks held on Wednesday, sanctions might be imposed on the two African states in case they did not comply with the UN resolution.
Answering a question about an Eritrean demand to withdraw UN forces from Eritrea, Awad clarified that Eritrea had only asked to pull out some UN elements and state representatives who, according to Eritrean officials, were not exerting enough effort to implement the UN demarcation resolution.
Asked about Ethiopia’s stance, presidential spokesman said that Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, during a meeting with president Mubarak on the sidelines of the last NEPAD summit, had made it clear that his country wanted to talk Resolution 1640 over first before actually demarcating the borders.
Ethiopia, Awad added, did not advocate a by-the-book implementation of the resolution, which could end up dividing families living in border villages.
President Mubarak discussed Zenawi’s views with Eritrean President Afewerki during their meeting, Awad noted.
Eritrea rejects any dialogue before the implementation of Resolution 1640.
(MENA/ST)