Ethiopia’s PM, Sudan’s defense minister discuss preparation of joint meeting

February 25, 2009 (ADDIS ABABA) – The Ethiopian prime Minister discussed preparation for a high level meeting to be held next month on bilateral relations with the Sudanese minister of defense who was in a short visit to Addis Ababa.

A meeting of the Ethiopian Sudanese Higher Committee will be held in Addis Ababa on March 10. The meeting will be co-chaired by the President Omer Hassan Al-Bashir and the Prime Minister Meles Zinawi.

This meeting will be preceded by a ministerial meeting headed by the foreign ministers of the two neighboring countries on March 9. While the experts’ committees will meet on the seventh and eighth of March.

Al-Bashir trip to Ethiopia, which is not a state party to the International Criminal Court, will be the first after the decision of the ICC on March 4 on the request of an arrest warrant against him on Darfur crimes.

The Ethiopian foreign minister Seyoum Mesfin told the official ENA that Minister Abdel Rahim Ahmed Hussein held talks on ways to boost the relations between the two countries.

The next month meetings will evaluate the implementation of the agreements signed in previous sessions and the two countries also will sign a number of agreements and memorandums of understanding dealing with economic, cultural relations as well as security issues.

“They stressed the need to do more by the two nations to expand trade, transport and investment.” Mesfin added.

They further discussed the issue of the joint border.

Hussein told the reporters following the meeting that they reviewed the different aspects of the bilateral relations and energy sector. Sudan exports oil to Ethiopia at preferential prices.

Ethiopia is one of the main contributors of troops to the hybrid peacekeeping mission in Darfur. There are currently around two battalions, 850 each, to be deployed in Darfur.

(ST)