Alternative mechanism on Eritrean conflict winning approval: Ethiopian minister
ADDIS ABABA, April 30, 2004 (Sudan Tribune) — Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin has said that Ethiopia’s alternative mechanism on resolving the Ethiopia-Eritrea border conflict peacefully was winning approval from the international community.
Ethiopia has rejected the Boundary commission’s 2002 ruling on the path of the border, despite agreeing, in a peace accord signed in December 2000, to respect it as “final and binding.”
Physical demarcation of the new border has been delayed indefinitely by Ethiopia’s rejection of the commission’s ruling that the dusty border village of Badme, which triggered the war, belonged to Eritrea.
In an interview with the Voice of Tigray Revolution, Seyoum Mesfin said the proposal forwarded by Ethiopia on the need for a face to face dialogue to resolve the problem was winning approval by the AU, EU, the UN and the Security Council.
The minister said that Ethiopia’s stand on the alternative mechanism which has won the approval of the international community is believed to bring about peace and stability between Ethiopia and Eritrea and will strengthen the relationship of the two peoples. In this respect, said Seyoum, the two sides have the responsibility of having proximity talks with the view to resolving the problem peacefully.
As the Eritrean government’s stand of implementing the Ethiopia-Eritrea Boundary Commission’s decision and its rejection of the alternative mechanism and dialogue was not right and would not bring lasting peace, good neighbourliness and peaceful coexistence, it could not have been accepted by the international community, the Ethiopian minister said.
In January, UN chief Kofi Annan appointed Canadian former foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy to try to break the deadlock between Asmara and Addis Ababa over the path of their shared border.
Earlier this month Eritrea said on it was willing to meet a U.N. special envoy trying to solve a border dispute with Ethiopia as long as he would not try to change the decision of the border commission.
Yemane Gebremeskel, a government spokesman, said Eritrea wanted assurance that the envoy, former Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy, would speed up the border demarcation process rather than change the commission’s ruling.