OWN CORRESPONDENT, Addis Ababa | Monday 9.45am.
ETHIOPIAN forces will only leave their positions in Eritrea if they are replaced by an international peacekeeping force, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said at the weekend.
At the same time, Eritrea said intensive artillery exchanges with Ethiopian forces began just after dawn on Monday on the southern desert front close to the Red Sea port of Assab, following a fierce battle at the weekend.
Giving details of how an Organisation of African Unity plan to end fighting should be revised in line with the new situation on the ground, Meles said the Ethiopian forces currently deployed on undisputed Eritrean soil will not leave without such guarantees from the international community.
Ethiopian forces are currently deployed in areas north of western and central portions of the border. Over the weekend, the two armies clashed further east, close to the Eritrean Red Sea port of Assab.
Meles had previously referred to the new need for “security guarantees” but this is the first time that he explained that an international force deployed well inside Eritrea should be the provider of such guarantees.
Delegates from Ethiopia and Eritrea attending OAU-brokered talks in Algiers are expected Monday to respond to new proposals aimed at bringing a peaceful resolution to the conflict, which first began in May 1998 and flared up again with an Ethiopian push on May 12 this year.
An existing OAU blueprint for peace, drawn up laboriously over the course of almost two years, calls for both sides to pull back troops to pre-conflict positions as well as for a ceasefire and then for the neutral demarcation of the border. — AFP