Albright To Go To Algeria For Ethiopia-Eritrea Peace Agreement
PRETORIA, (AFP) – U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright will visit Algiers Tuesday for a ceremony sealing a peace agreement between Ethiopia and Eritrea, she announced in Pretoria Friday.
"I have added a step on this trip, to Algiers, where I will be participating in the event of signing the Ethiopia-Eritrea agreement," she told journalists accompanying her.
Albright, on a three-nation tour of Africa, is due to go on from South Africa to Mauritius, then Botswana.
She said she would leave Botswana Monday night for Algeria, traveling to Hungary after Tuesday's ceremony.
From Hungary, Albright is to go on to Brussels for a NATO ministerial meeting.
She declared that "the United States can take great pride" in the role in ending the Horn of Africa war played by special envoy Anthony Lake and Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Susan Rice.
The peace accord is due to be signed by Eritrean President Issaias Afeworki and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.
Others taking part will include Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, one of the architects of the pact, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and Organization of African Unity (OAU) Secretary General Salim Ahmed Salim.
The war, which lasted for two years, left tens of thousands of dead and 1.32 million people displaced.
