|
Ethiopia And Eritrea To Sign Comprehensive Peace Accord
NAIROBI (AFP) - Ethiopia and Eritrea will sign a comprehensive peace accord in Algeria on December 12th to end more than two years of sporadic but bloody war both countries said Monday.
"Eritrea and Ethiopia will sign a comprehensive peace agreement in Algiers on December 12th," the Eritrean foreign ministry said in statement in Nairobi.
"Ethiopia will definitely be in Algiers... [The accord] is in principle acceptable," said an official in the Ethiopian foreign ministry who asked not to be named.
The official added that the matter would first have to be put to the council of ministers and approved by parliament.
Eritrean President Issaias Afeworki on Sunday "received formal letters from President Abdulaziz Bouteflika [of Algeria] inviting him to Algiers for the formal signing of the agreement," the Eritrean statement said.
"The peace agreement essentially provides for the settlement of the conflict through the delimitation and demarcation of the border" separating the two Horn of Africa states, the statement added.
The European Union's special representative at the talks, Italy's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Rino Serri, confirmed the peace agreement Monday.
"I can confirm that on December 12th, I will participate in Algiers in the signing of the peace agreement between Ethiopia and Eritrea," Serri said in Rome.
"We worked very hard towards this objective," he added, underscoring the efforts by the Organization of African Unity (OAU), the EU and the United States.
Both sides will have 45 days after signing to put their territorial claims to United Nations cartographers.
Territorial disputes sparked a full-scale war in May 1998 and the conflict took the shape of very heavy fighting interspersed with lulls.
The frontlines have been quiet since June, when Asmara and Addis Ababa signed a cessation of hostilities agreement, also in Algiers.
According to Asmara, under the deal to be signed next week "the parties agree that a neutral Boundary Commission composed of five members shall be established with a mandate to delimit and demarcate the colonial treaty boundary based on pertinent colonial treaties [1900, 1902 and 1908] and applicable international law."
The border was not clearly defined when Eritrea officially gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993.
The peace accord will also set up a Claims Commission "to decide through binding arbitration all claims for loss, damage or injury by the one government against the other," according to the Eritrean statement.
The deal "also provides for the release and repatriation of all prisoners of war and all other persons detained as a result of the armed conflict," the statement concluded.
According to diplomats in Addis Ababa, mediators hope the accord will be signed at the highest level; that is, by Afeworki and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.
As of Monday evening, Ethiopia had not announced whether the accord would be signed by Meles or by Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin, who signed the earlier deal in June.
The resumption of development aid and new loans to both countries is dependent on the irreversible restoration of peace.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan is due in the Ethiopian capital on Tuesday evening and is scheduled to travel on to Asmara on Friday, to witness the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers into border areas.
|
