Ethiopia accepts the outline of its frontiers with Eritrea as set by a joint commission after their 1998-2000 border war, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said on Thursday.
”Ethiopia accepts in principle the Ethiopia-Eritrea boundary commission decision,” Meles told Parliament as he presented a report on a fresh initiative to advance the peace process between the Horn of Africa neighbours.
Although both countries agreed in a peace accord signed in Algiers in 2000 to accept the commission’s ruling — issued the following April — as final and binding, Ethiopia rejected it as ”unjust” in September 2003.
This prevented the crucial process of physically marking out the border from getting off the ground or the peace process from advancing.
”Resolving all sorts of problems betweem the two countries and thus creating conditions for nornalisation, in the relations between them, is the only guarantee for a durable and sustainable peace. This is becoming more obvious today than ever before,” Meles said. – Sapa-AFP