Ethiopia seeks peaceful outcome to Eritrea border dispute
PRETORIA (AFP) — Ethiopia is determined to solve its border dispute with Eritrea peacefully, the country's foreign minister Seyoum Mesfin said Tuesday.
"We will continue to exert all our efforts to settle the dispute with Eritrea by peaceful means," the Ethiopian minister told journalists after talks with his South African counterpart Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma in Pretoria.
"We have learnt the hard way that disputes, be they over borders or other issues, between states cannot be resolved by war and conflict.
"The only way is by peaceful, diplomatic means."
Mesfin's remarks came as United Nations peacekeepers quit Eritrea having been starved of fuel by the authorities in Asmara.
Ethiopia and Eritrea remain deadlocked in a border standoff following their 1998-2000 war that left 70,000 people dead.
Eritrea has repeatedly accused its bigger East African neighbour of bracing for a new border war.
An estimated 200,000 troops from both sides are deployed along the border, fuelling international fears of a new flare-up.
