Eritrea’s Afewerki says US encourages Ethiopian occupation

April 18, 2008 (ASMARA) — Eritrean president has accused the United States of encouraging the Ethiopian government to occupy a disputed portion of territory, adding that US policy in the region aiming to ensure its interests first.

In an interview broadcasted by Al-Jazeera satellite TV on Friday, President Isaias Afewerki charged the US with encouraging Addis Ababa to not implement the border demarcation as it mapped by the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC) in April 2002 and in accordance with Algiers peace deal.

“This problem is basically created by the US and that the TPLF regime [Ethiopian government] does not possess the power to occupy Eritrean territory without the support and encouragement of the US Administration.” The official Shabait reported.

Eritrea and Ethiopia routinely trade accusations over their border dispute, which led to a 1998-2000 war between the Horn of Africa neighbours in which some 70,000 people were killed.

The two countries have been deadlocked over their 1,000 km (620-mile) frontier since a 2002 border ruling.

Ethiopia has repeatedly called for talks on border demarcation and normalisation of relations before it will pull back from areas assigned to Eritrea by a boundary commission decision.

Eritrea rejects this, saying Ethiopia must remove all its troops from the Red Sea state’s sovereign territory before talks can happen.
Afwerki also denounced the US policy in Somalia saying “Washington is dictating its sole interest on the choice of people at global level.”

According to the Eritrean president US war on terror and its support of the Somali government, backed by Ethiopian troops, illustrates how much the “United States strive to ensure its interests first without any consideration for the will popular will”

He stressed also that Washington speaks about democracy but actually it looks for regional allies “no matter a given African country is democratic or not.”

(ST)