Eritrea, Sudan re-open border formally

Nov 6, 2006 (ASMARA) — Eritrea and Sudan have re-opened their border after a decade of closure amid frosty ties, with Asmara offering to mediate peace talks between Khartoum and western Darfur rebels, officials said Sunday.

Following last month’s signing of an Eritrean-mediated peace between the Sudanese government and eastern rebels, Eritrea said it and Sudan had fully restored cross-border links at a ceremony on Friday.

“The present ceremony is a step taken to further strengthen ties between the two countries,” said Abdalla Jabir, a senior official in Eritrea’s only political party, the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ).

In a statement published on the Eritrean foreign ministry’s website, Jabir said the official re-opening of the border between Eritrea and its western neighbor was an “important step” for the two countries and the region.

The ceremony was held after the signing of a peace deal in Asmara in October between Khartoum and the Eastern Front rebels, comprised of groups that had been waging a low-level guerrilla war in eastern Sudan for more than a decade.

Over the last ten years, relations between Eritrea and Sudan have been strained by mutual accusations that each was harboring rebel groups hostile to the other.

In 2002, Eritrea and Sudan withdrew their ambassadors and closed the border, after Khartoum accused Asmara of supporting an offensive by Sudanese rebels on its territory.

But after the January 2005 signing of a peace agreement to end Sudan’s long-running north-south civil war, the two nations have warmed to each other with Eritrea playing a lead role in ending the conflict in east Sudan.

In its Sunday statement, Eritrea said it had offered to mediate between Khartoum and Darfur rebel groups that have refused to sign a May African Union-mediated peace deal.

Yemane Gebreab, head of the Eritrean delegation in Sudan for the border ceremony, said Asmara had received a “positive response” to the offer from Khartoum, according to the statement.

Only one of Darfur’s rebel groups has signed onto the pact that aims to end violence in the region that has left at least 200,000 people dead and 2.5 million homeless in the past three and a half years.

All of recognized Darfur rebel groups have offices in Eritrea and three of them the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), a holdout faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Sudan Federal Democratic Alliance (SFDA), in June formed the National Redemption Front (NRF).

(AFP)