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31 May, 2007
NAIROBI (AFP) - Eritrean President Issaias Afeworki on Wednesday urged the world to pressure arch-foe Ethiopia to accept a ruling of a boundary commission to resolve a tense border dispute.
Issaias made the remarks in a meeting with a Norwegian delegation headed by Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Raymond Johannson, the Eritrean information ministry said.
Issaias "underlined that in order for the border issue to be unconditionally resolved on the basis of the EEBC's (Eritrea Ethiopia Boundery Commission) final and binding ruling, the international community should assume its responsibility and that there is no other alternative," the statement said.
"Violation of the main issue could not bring about any solution other than aggravating the security situation," the statement reported Issaias as saying.
The two impoverished Horn of Africa neighbours fought a bitter territorial war between 1998 and 2000 and are still at odds over the border.
An independent boundary commission that was formed after the peace agreement awarded the flashpoint town of Badme to Eritrea, but it remains under Ethiopian control.
Ethiopia insists the ruling should be altered since it will split families and villages between the two countries.
Eritrea has repeatedly rejected calls for renegotiation of the 2000 border ruling and instead introduced restrictions including bans on air patrols and UN peacekeepers monitoring the buffer zone, blaming UN Security Council failure to press Addis Ababa to fully implement the peace deal.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has warned of the potential for a new outbreak in hostilities with Ethiopia, pointing to a worsening situation with heavy troop deployments in the border buffer zone.