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26 September, 2007
ASMARA (AFP) - Eritrea on Wednesday reacted coolly to a threat by its arch-foe Ethiopia to abandon a peace agreement that ended their 1998-2000 war and whose implementation has stalled.
Eritrean Information Minister Ali Abdu insisted Ethiopia must implement the peace accord by accepting a 2002 ruling that awarded the flashpoint border town of Badme to Asmara.
"The Eritrea Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC) is entitled and mandated to demarcate the border, but the Ethiopian regime is refusing to abide by the rule of law," Ali told AFP.
"Eritrea has nothing to do on this issue and as far as Eritrea is concerned, everything that has been said is irrelevant," he added.
On Tuesday, Ethiopia's Foreign Affairs Minister Seyoum Mesfin said Addis Ababa is mulling "legal and peaceful options, including terminating the agreements or suspending their operation in whole or in part," charging its tiny neighbour with breaching the pact and supporting "terrorism."
The exchanges are the latest in a string of heated remarks flying between the two countries, which have choked efforts to implement the 2000 peace deal.
The EEBC ruling two years later to fix the countries' border granted Badme to Eritrea.
But Addis Ababa wants the border ruling revised, saying it splits families, while Eritrea says Ethiopia is violating international law in refusing to accept the decision.
Early this month, an EEBC meeting in The Hague, seen as a last-ditch attempt to break the frontier deadlock, ended in deadlock. The border panel will dissolve in November and the frontier will be fixed on maps if no progress has been made by then.
At the same meeting, Asmara said it would comply with all requirements, including pulling its troops out of a buffer corridor that hugs the Eritrean side of the border, where the UN peacekeeping force to the two nations is stationed.
EEBC President Sir Elihu Lauterpacht said at the September 7 meeting that the foes have to cooperate if the row is to be resolved.
"We greatly regret that we could not take our work through to its full conclusion, but at least we leave you with a line that is operable. It is up to you to work out how to implement it," said Lauterpacht.
"It is up to you to consider such devices as open boundaries so that some of what you identify as manifest absurdities because a line cuts a village or a road several times can be overcome by allowing the boundary to be open," he said, according a transcript seen by AFP.