July 10
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia -- (AFP) -- Efforts to resolve the border conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea are continuing, with African diplomats shuttling between Addis Ababa and Asmara and a U.N. team due to arrive in the Ethiopian capital today.
The team will include an American, an Italian, the Ethiopian and Eritrean ambassadors to the United States and United Nations and a special envoy representing U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, he said.
The Security Council asked Annan in a resolution on June 26 to provide technical help to the two Horn of Africa countries for eventual demarcation of the ill-defined 600-mile-long border.
Ambassadors to the Organization of African Unity (OAU) from Djibouti, Zimbabwe and Burkina Faso, plus staff members of the OAU's committe for conflict prevention, management and resolution, held talks Wednesday with Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi after discussions in Asmara with Eritrean President Isaias Afeworki and technical experts.
Meles insisted that the issue at stake ``was not primarily that of border delimitation but the violation of Ethiopia's sovereignty and territorial integrity as a result of forceful occupation of its territories by the Eritrean forces,'' the government Ethiopian Herald reported.
He gave them a ``detailed and comprehensive account of the genesis of the crisis and relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea since 1991,'' when Ethiopian and Eritrean rebels overthrew dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam and Eritrea achieved de facto independence from Ethiopia, the official ENA news agency reported.
Meles accused the Eritrean government of being ``bent on distorting facts'' rather than ``making goodwill gestures so as to resolve the crisis peacefully.''
The war over the border flared on May 6, and reliable sources reported hundreds killed in subsequent battles, but no major clashes have been reported since June 11.
However, troops still are dug in on both sides of the border, and Meles warned in parliament on Tuesday that the country would ``defend our sovereignty by force'' if Eritrean troops continued to occupy territory that Addis Ababa considers to be Ethiopian.