'Border at Badme is binding'
2004-01-15 13:39
Asmara - A ruling by an independent commission on the path of the border between Eritrea and Ethiopia, over which the neighbours fought a two-year war, was final and binding, Britain's minister for Africa Chris Mullin has said here.
"We are making it clear to both parties that the border commission decision is final, legal and binding," Mullin said late Wednesday in the Eritrean capital, the first leg of a visit aimed at defusing fresh tensions between the Horn of Africa neighbours over their border.
"Our message is the same to both capitals, that the boundary commission decision should be implemented," he said.
Tens of thousands of people died during the two-year border war, which was resolved in December 2000, when a peace pact was signed in Algiers.
Under that pact, an independent border commission was set up to rule on the exact path of the border, and Ethiopia and Eritrea agreed that they would accept whatever the commission's final decision was.
But five months after the commission made its ruling in April 2002, Ethiopia rejected it, particularly because it gave the border town of Badme to Eritrea.
The physical demarcation of the border has still not begun, and tensions are on the rise again in the Horn of Africa.
In recent months, incidents involving gunfire, landmines and troop movements near the border have exacerbated friction between the two countries.
British officials "are going to do their best to make Ethiopia comply by the final and binding decision," said Eritrean Foreign Minister Ali Seid Abdella after meeting with Mullin on Wednesday.
"We obviously need to see progress on the border," said Mullin.
"The issue of peace clouds everything else, certainly as far as the development of Eritrea and to a lesser extend Ethiopia is concerned."
The Eritrean government considers Ethiopia's rejection of the commission's ruling on the border a violation of the Algiers accord and has called on the international community to impose sanctions on Addis Ababa.
Mullin said Britain has "no immediate plans for sanctions."
The British official is due to hold talks later Thursday with Eritrean President Issaias Afeworki, before flying to the Ethiopian capital, where he will meet Friday with Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.
Mullin's trip is the first by a British government minister to Eritrea since 1993, and follows a mission to Ethiopia by former international development minister Clare Short a year ago.
smo/kdz/lp