OWN CORRESPONDENT, Asmara | Friday 10.40am.
ERITREA’s army must be incapacitated before Ethiopia will agree to halt a two-year-old conflict with its neighbour, the Ethiopian ambassador said in Nairobi on Friday.
“Ethiopia would not stop the fighting until it makes sure that Eritrea is not a threat to its national security,” Tashome Toga told a media briefing.
Ethiopia also said on Friday that it will be the sole judge in verifying whether Eritrean troops have withdrawn from disputed territory on their common border, dashing hopes of a swift end to their bitter two-year war.
At the same time Eritrea has agreed to withdraw its troops from disputed territories in the east, the foreign ministry said in Asmara on Friday.
“President Issaias [Afeworki] formally informed the OAU [Organization of African Unity] current chairman that Eritrea commits itself to redeploy its troops from Bada and Burie,” the statement said.
Ethiopia had demanded this withdrawal as a condition for putting an end to the two-year-old border war that flared up again in earnest on May 12.
Meanwhile about 70 Ethiopians seeking asylum in South Africa gathered at the Union Buildings in Pretoria on Friday, calling on the government to grant them refugee status.
A spokesman for the group, Kassa Argaw, said the asylum applications of several members of the group have been turned down by the Department of Home Affairs. “The department deems Ethiopia a safe country. We fail to understand how it reached that conclusion,” he said