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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 17 May 2006

ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: Ethiopia will not start war - Meles

ADDIS ABABA, 17 May 2006 (IRIN) - Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has reiterated that Ethiopia would not re-ignite its border conflict with neighbouring Eritrea, despite prevailing tensions over determining the boundary between the two Horn of Africa neighbours.

"Our policy is a peace policy," Meles told his nation's parliament on Tuesday. "If there is going to be any war, it is not going to be because of us but because of the Eritrean government. We will not be the ones to start it."

The prime minister’s comments came ahead of a meeting in London on Wednesday of the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission, which includes representatives from both countries as well as international mediators. The group is part of a United States-sponsored initiative to find a peaceful, lasting resolution to the border standoff.

Officials in Addis Ababa, however, said Ethiopian representatives at the London talks were not optimistic of a major breakthrough. "Ethiopia is going to the meeting with an open mind, because we believe in peace," said Salomon Abebe, the foreign ministry’s spokesman. "Ethiopia is not very optimistic that the result of the meeting will be fruitful because of the behaviour of the Eritrean government: They don't want peace."

Thousands of people were killed in the Ethiopia-Eritrea border war from 1998 until 2000. To end the conflict, both parties agreed to abide by the ruling of an independent border commission, which was reached in April 2002. However, Ethiopia's rejection of the decision stalled the physical demarcation of the border in 2003. In November 2004, Meles finally accepted "in principle" the boundary demarcation in a five-point peace proposal that called for a meeting with Eritrea to work out adjustments to the border on both sides.

Eritrea, however, has rejected calls for fresh talks on the border issue. In the past year, there have been increased tensions and a buildup of troops along both sides of the frontier, which is patrolled by United Nations peacekeepers. Frustrated at the lack of progress in resolving the dispute, Eritrea banned UN Mission in Ethiopian and Eritrea (UNMEE) flights over its territory in October 2005 and expelled the peacekeeping mission's North American and European personnel.

In New York on Monday, the United Nations Security Council postponed by two weeks a decision on whether to downgrade UNMEE pending the outcome of the London meeting.

[ENDS]

This material comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Quotations or extracts should include attribution to the original sources. All materials copyright © UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2006