Eritrea blames international community over border row with Ethiopia

ASMARA, Sept 22 (AFP) — Eritrea on Wednesday blamed the international community for failing to force its neighbour, Ethiopia, to comply with a ruling on the path of the countries’ shared border, over which they went to war between 1998 and 2000.

“The problem is not Ethiopia any more but the international community,” Eritrean president Isaias Afewerki’s chief of staff, Yemane Gebremeskel, told AFP.

“If there were a firm position taken in Brussels or Washington, this problem could be solved in a few days, if not hours,” he explained.

Ethiopia has refused to accept the border ruling handed down in 2002 by an independent commission set up under peace accords the Horn of Africa neighbours signed in 2000, in which both parties undertook to abide by the decision.

As a result, the crucial process of physically marking out the border has been indefinitely postponed, while relations between the two countries remain virtually non-existent.

“Every day, I read that Ethiopia… receives lots of money from the World Bank, from the European Union, etc. Ethiopia can therefore see that the international community is not serious” when it asks Addis Ababa to respect the demarcation ruling, added Yemane.

“It is a bad precedent for international law,” he said.

“If the boundary were demarcated tomorrow, Eritrea would have no problems to normalise relations with Ethiopia,” he added.

Asked about his own government’s refusal to meet the UN’s appointed trouble-shooter for the region, Lloyd Axworthy, Yemane replied: “Nobody has explained what is his mandate, what he is supposed to do”.

Meeting the envoy would be a “a waste of time for everyone,” he added.

“Some diplomats tell us that if we receive Lloyd Axworthy it will look better. But Ethiopia has rejected an international law decision and it does not look worse,” he exclaimed.