Ethiopia move could set back peace effort- Eritrean president

By Ed Harris

NAIROBI, Dec 7 (Reuters) – Ethiopian plans for a resolution of a border dispute with Eritrea would only worsen peace efforts between the former foes, Eritrean President Isayas Afewerki said.

Isayas reiterated that Ethiopia had to accept in full a 2002 ruling by an independent boundary commission on the dispute, which has simmered ever since their 1998-2000 war, the Eritrean government’s website reported.

“Ethiopia’s recent statement is, in fact, a move that would drag the peace process another step backwards,” the website reported Isayas as saying.

Isayas was reacting to an announcement by Ethiopia last month that it had finally accepted in principle the boundary commission’s ruling, which ruled that the disputed town of Badme lay in Eritrea, not in Ethiopia.

Badme was the flashpoint of the conflict that killed an estimated 70,000 people in trench warfare reminiscent of World War One.

Ethiopia’s surprise announcement – an apparent about-turn by the government after it spent two years opposing the ruling – added however that Addis Ababa wanted “dialogue” with Asmara on how to implement the ruling in the estimated 15 percent of the border that is contentious.

That statement has been widely interpreted as a call for negotiations over the most contentious areas of the frontier, which is patrolled by U.N. peacekeepers.

The international community says that would go against promises made by both Horn of Africa countries to be bound by the commission’s ruling.

“President Isayas also underlined that Eritrea will not accept any alternatives to the Boundary Commission’s decision,” the website reported.