Eritrea ‘questions’ role of UN envoy to Horn of Africa crisis
ASMARA, Feb 2 (AFP) — Asmara on Monday “questioned” the role of the envoy UN chief Kofi Annan appointed last week to end an impasse in the peace process between Ethiopia and Eritrea, insisting the onus for progress lay with its neighbour.
“We are questioning what the job of the special envoy will be,” presidential cabinet chief Yemane Gebremeskel told AFP in the wake of Annan’s announcement on Friday that he had appointed Canadian former foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy as his envoy to Ethiopia and Eritrea.
This was a notably softer position than the one Yemane initially gave in early January, when Annan announced his plan to appoint an envoy to try to resolve the on-going crisis between the once-warring neighbours. Then the Eritrean official flatly described it as “unnacceptable.”
The peace process has come unstuck over Badme, the very border town that ignited a devastating two-year war in 1998.
In a peace accord Asmara and Addis Ababa signed in Algiers in 2000, they committed to accepting as “final and binding” the ruling of an independent boundary commission on the precise path of their 1,000 kilometre (600-mile) shared border.
But when the commission ruled that Badme was Eritrea’s, Ethiopia, which has long administered the town, rejected the decision, saying it violated the spirit of the Algiers accord.
As a result, the crucial process of physically marking out the border has been indefinitely postponed.
For its part, Eritrea has dismissed pleas for renewed dialogue with Ethiopia, insisting that Ethiopia must first fulfil its “final and binding” obligation and accept the border ruling.
“If there is no progress today in the peace process, it’s because of one side. The job of the UN is to persuade Ethiopia to accept the boundary commission’s decision,” said Yemane, who added that Eritrea had not been officially informed of Axworthy’s appointnment.
“I can’t see what his job will be in Eritrea,” he added.
“It is very simple. If the special envoy’s mandate is not on the implementation of the demarcation and if it is not time yet to talk about normalisation (of relations between the two countries), what is his function?,” he asked.
On making the appointment, Annan said he hoped Axworthy would enjoy Eritrea’s cooperation.
“There is no question of legally contemplating any new mechanism, that’s against the Algiers agreement,” said the Eritrean official.