Eritrea on Tuesday for the first time confirmed it would attend talks in London this week aimed at resolving border tensions with its arch-rival Horn-of-Africa neighbour, Ethiopia.
The announcement came a day after the United Nations Security Council gave Ethiopia and Eritrea until the end of the month to ease the situation or face possible sanctions and downgrading of the UN peacekeeping mission monitoring the border.
Yemane Gebremeskel, Cabinet chief to Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki, said a government legal adviser would participate in the meeting of an international boundary commission that is set to begin on Wednesday in London.
”We are sending a legal representative of the State of Eritrea,” he told Agence France-Presse.
The commission is meeting as part of a United States-sponsored initiative to salvage the 2000 peace deal that ended Ethiopia and Eritrea’s bloody two-year border war and prevent a new conflict.
Ethiopia has thus far refused to accept a binding border demarcation issued by the commission in 2002, a stance that has infuriated Eritrea and led it to impose restrictions on the peacekeeping mission.
On Monday, the Security Council postponed by two weeks a decision on whether to downgrade the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) pending a possible breakthrough at the London talks.
The council, which has demanded that Eritrea lift the restrictions on UNMEE and that Ethiopia accept the border ruling, said it looked forward to a positive outcome of the meeting.
But Yemane was cautious, noting that a first meeting of the commission in March had produced no results and insisted that the primary issue was Ethiopia’s rejection of the border delineation.
”Ethiopia has still not made it clear that it accepts the boundary decision,” he said.
Yemane maintained that Eritrea’s restrictions on UNMEE, which include a ban on helicopter flights, limits on some ground patrols and the expulsion of the mission’s North American and European staff, were secondary.
”The primary issue is the boundary decision, other issues are by-products,” he said. ”UNMEE was not supposed to be here on a permanent basis but was meant to facilitate the demarcation.
”Its mandate has been extended for six years now but there is no light at the end of the tunnel,” Yemane said.
The border commission’s ruling awarded the flashpoint town of Badme to Eritrea, and while Ethiopia has said it accepts the demarcation in principle, it has demanded that revisions be made. — Sapa-AFP