Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi on Thursday urged Eritrea and rebel groups he said it supports to talk peace and stop trying to destabilise his Horn of Africa country.
The United Nations said Eritrea’s decision to move troops and tanks into a United Nations buffer zone between the two countries was a ”major breach” of a 2000 peace agreement that ended a two-year border war.
”Eritrea must accept Ethiopia’s offer of dialogue to end the border dispute. It must also stop training, arming and financing rebel groups,” Meles told Parliament in Addis Ababa.
”Eritrea must understand by now: it is virtually impossible for them or the rebels they are supporting to destabilise Ethiopia. We have the might and preparedness to hit back at any one which challenges the territorial integrity and sovereignty of our country.”
Eritrea defended entering the zone, citing sovereign rights over the territory. Meles said earlier this week Ethiopia would not react militarily to what he called a ”minor provocation”.
An estimated 70 000 people were killed in the 1998/2000 war. Under the Algiers Peace Agreement which ended the conflict, both sides agreed to accept an independent boundary commission’s ruling mapping the border as ”final and binding”.
But the process ground to a halt after Ethiopia rejected the commission’s border and insisted on further talks, prompting Eritrea to restrict peacekeepers’ movements including a ban on helicopter flights over its territory.
Meles said on Thursday Eritrea had violated the Algiers agreement, and that Ethiopia now considered that deal to be ”non-existent”. He did not elaborate. – Reuters