Eritrea on Monday opposed plans by an independent border panel to demarcate its contentious border with arch-rival Ethiopia on paper, saying the move offers no solution to the simmering row.
Instead, Asmara said steps should be taken against Ethiopia, which it has repeatedly blamed for blocking the implementation of the panel’s 2002 ruling by calling for revisions.
”Eritrea’s position is very clear: we have accepted the decision, we have respected all the provisions of the agreement,” said Yemane Gebremeskel, the director of Eritrean President Issaias Afeworki’s office.
”We can’t accept a half-formula, and the idea of relegating its mandate to the parties is not consistent with the provisions with the [Algiers] agreement,” he said, referring a peace deal that ended the 1998-to-2000 war.
Last week, the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission announced a plan to demarcate the frontier on maps despite ongoing tensions, expressing frustration with hard-line stances on both sides that have prevented the physical marking of the border.
The Horn of Africa neighbours were invited to attend the commission’s Monday meeting in The Hague to give their views, after which a final decision would be made.
However, Eritrea declined to attend, sending a letter to the commission in which it dismissed the plans, saying they broke rules laid down in the December 2000 peace deal signed in Algiers.
The rejection follows comments by Issaias last week that the border issue was ”solved”.
The border delineation will be recorded on 45 official maps if the panel decides to go ahead with its proposal.
The commission added that it was proceeding after being hit with ”serious and continuing impediments” and an ”absence of any indication by the parties of a likely change in their attitudes”.
The move comes amid growing international concern at the failure to fully implement a 2000 peace deal that ended their bloody border war that claimed nearly 80 000 lives, and fears they may be using Somalia as a proxy battleground.
That deal required both sides to accept as ”final and binding” the ruling of the boundary commission, but when it announced its decision in 2002, Ethiopia rejected it, later saying that it accepted in principle but only with revisions.
The panel’s decision awarded the flashpoint border town of Badme to Eritrea and Ethiopia says the ruling must be altered since it will split families and villages between the two countries.
The result has been that the 1 000km border remains non-demarcated and a source of constant tension in the region with fears of a return to conflict. — Sapa-AFP