Eritrean president returns from visit to Kuwait, Dubai

ASMARA, Oct 10 (AFP) — Eritrean President Isaias Afeworki has returned to Eritrea after a one-week working visit to Kuwait and Dubai, an Eritrean information ministry statement said on Sunday.

“The President said that his visit to Kuwait from October 2-5 would boost Eritrean-Kuwaiti relations that were established in 1961,” at the start of Eritrea’s war of independence against Ethiopia which ended in 1991, the statement said.

In Kuwait, Isaias held talks on bilateral relations “with Prince Sheik Jabir Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah, Prime Minister Sheik Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah and other senior officials,” the statement said.

Although Eritrea’s relations with Kuwait and Dubai are good, it is not the case of its relations with its two big neighbours — Ethiopia and Sudan.

A border dispute with Ethiopia has still not been solved after last year’s rejection by Addis Ababa of the demarcation imposed by an independent commission after the 1998-2000 border war between the two countries, although they had promised to respect the demarcation as “final and binding.”

Khartoum also accuses Eritrea of training and giving military supplies to Sudanese opposition groups, a claim that Asmara strongly denies.