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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

ERITREA: Chapter with Ethiopia closed, Isayas says

NAIROBI, 16 April 2003 (IRIN) - Eritrean President Isayas Afewerki has said that as far as his country is concerned, the chapter of war with Ethiopia is closed.

In an interview with Radio France Internationale, broadcast on 16 April, he described the two year border conflict from 1998-2000 as "unnecessary" and an "unwanted development".

He stressed the importance of peace for the Eritrean people who, he said, had paid heavily for their liberation in 1991 and who had made many sacrifices.

He said Eritrea had tried to work in harmony with Ethiopia, but "to our surprise, Ethiopia declared war in 1998". He accused the Ethiopian government of "territorial ambitions and hegemony".

He said the issue could not even be resolved militarily, and finally a legal process had to resolve it.

"It was a senseless war and should have been avoided," he said. "The political attitude of the rulers in Ethiopia is still the problem, otherwise for us the chapter is closed."

Ethiopia has expressed unhappiness over an announcement by an independent border commission that the controversial village of Badme - where the conflict flared up in 1998 - is in Eritrean territory.

The Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC) was established as part of the Algiers peace accord of December 2000 which officially ended the war between both countries. The two sides agreed to accept the eventual border ruling as "final and binding". The EEBC issued its ruling on 13 April 2002, but the decision was ambiguous about the location of Badme. Last month, the EEBC announced categorically that the symbolic village was in Eritrea.

Themes: (IRIN) Conflict

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