The pact, signed by Ethiopian Justice Minister Worede Woldu Wolde and Yemeni Interior Minister Major-General Husayn Muhammad Arab, provides for joint action to ``control elements attempting to destabilise the two countries' peace and stability,'' the television said.

The report said the two sides had agreed to ``jointly engage any third party that attempts to destabilise the long-standing brotherly and historic ties between the two countries.''

A Foreign Ministry spokesman said each country had pledged not to harbour elements seeking to destabilise the other's peace and stability and had undertaken to ensure the safety of citizens of the other country residing on its territory.

Diplomats said the agreement appeared to reflect the strained relations existing between the two countries on the one hand and the Red Sea republic of Eritrea on the other, as well as their mutual suspicion of the small Red Sea country.

Landlocked Ethiopia has been engaged in a bitter border war with Eritrea since May last year, while Yemen and Eritrea have been in dispute over the ownership of islands in the Red Sea.

INTRO: The leaders of three rival Somali factions have paid an unusual visit to Addis Ababa to meet with Ethiopian officials. As Jennifer Wiens reports from V-O-A's East Africa bureau in Nairobi, Ethiopia is trying to stop Somalia's involvement in the conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia.

TEXT: Somali faction leaders Hussein Aidid, Hassan Osman Ali and Omar Hajji Massala are rivals in the ongoing struggle for control of Somalia and its capital, Mogadishu. But on Friday, the three rivals sat down together for talks with Ethiopian officials.

The Ethiopian government requested the meeting and invited the Somali leaders to the capital, Addis Ababa, for talks with Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin.

One reason for the meeting is the mandate given to Ethiopia by the Organization of African Unity to try to bring peace to Somalia, which has been torn apart by clan and militia fighting since its central government collapsed in 1991.

Ethiopia is also concerned about growing Somali involvement in the 19-month old border war between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Ethiopia says Eritrea gives Hussein Aidid's faction arms and military training. In return, it says, terrorist groups use parts of Somalia controlled by Mr. Aidid as a base to launch attacks into southern Ethiopia.

One such group is the Al-Itihad Al-Islam, which is allied with Aidid and fights to unite eastern Ethiopia's Ogaden region with Somalia and establish an Islamic state.

Eritrea says it has no military presence in Somalia, and in turn accuses Ethiopia of backing Aidid's rivals.

Official sources in Ethiopia say the Somali delegates and Foreign Minister Mesfin discussed these issues during Friday's meeting. The foreign minister reportedly told the three Somali leaders they must stop supporting forces opposed to Ethiopia, which have been trained by Eritrea and operate from Somalia.

There was no indication if a final agreement was reached between the Somali delegation and the Ethiopians.

There was no comment from the Ethiopian authorities on the outcome of Aideed's consultations, nor from the faction leader as he left for home through an undisclosed neighbouring country.

The Somali warlord flew into Addis Ababa Thursday at the invitation of the Ethiopian government.

He met with Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin for lengthy consultations Friday, according to an official spokesperson.

The consultations were in line with the mandate the OAU had given Ethiopia to broker peace among the various factions in Somalia in order to bring about reconciliation.

Seyoum's talks with Aideed also covered Ethiopia's "legitimate concern" over the support the Somali leader's faction provided to opposition groups which Addis Ababa describes as "terrorists.

These groups "are trained and armed in Eritrea and operate within areas controlled by the Aideed faction, and infiltrate into Ethiopia with the objective of destabilising the country," the spokesperson said.

The two countries have been at war, ostensibly over their 1,000-kilometre (600-mile) border, since May last year.

The officials told AFP that the Eritreans arrived at the eastern Burie front at 2.00 a.m. (2300 GMT), where they were forced to walk four kilometers (close to three miles) in darkness through a potentially mined area.

The deportees arrived on the Eritrean side of the no-man's land at around 5.00 a.m. (0200 GMT) and were then taken to Assab, a major port town on the Red Sea, by Eritrean Relief and Refugee Commission, the officials said.

Eritrea had appealed to several international organisations, including the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the UN High Commisioner for Refugees (UNHCR), to stop the crossing, but without success.

Consequently, Eritrean presidential spokesman Yemane Ghebremeskel said his government would continue to lodge complaints in the hope of stopping future deportations under such dangerous conditions.

Yemane reiterated, however, that Eritrea would welcome back all Eritreans still in Ethiopia, as it had already taken in 63,000 deportees.

Last week, Ethiopia asked the ICRC, as a neutral intermediary, to arrange to return the Eritreans.

This operation was cancelled after Eritrea informed the ICRC it could not guarantee safe passage as the crossing was too dangerous.

But on Wednesday, Ethiopia put the Eritreans on 29 buses, which officials in Asmara claimed were headed through the most hazarduous route, which is currently on a high state of alert, after diplomatic efforts resolve the conflict stalled, prompting both sides to build up troops along the border.

The ICRC maintains that it had been in the process of arranging to airlift the deportees out to safety, when Ethiopia suddenly decided to return them home by buses.

More than 63,000 Eritreans have been deported home from Ethiopia since the begging of the war, which has left tens of thousand people dead and hundreds of thousands displaced.

International aid groups estimate that 10,000 Eritreans are still in Ethiopia, awaiting safe passage back home, compared to 2,000 Ethiopians awaiting to be returned home.