Djibouti on Thursday hailed a new era in its relations with rival Eritrea, whose foreign minister paid a surprise visit to the country as part of a regional bid to soothe tensions between the neighbours.<\/p>\n
The two small Horn of Africa nations have been at loggerheads for decades over the disputed border region of Doumeira, and clashes erupted in 2008. Qatar brokered a peace deal in 2010 but relations have remained strained.<\/p>\n
Djiboutian Foreign Minister Mahamoud Ali Youssouf said his Eritrean counterpart Osman Saleh was visiting to “open a new era in relations between our two countries. Now it is the time for peace”.<\/p>\n
Echoing the sentiment, Ethiopian foreign ministry spokesman Meles Alem welcomed the fact that the countries “have agreed to normalise relations and iron out their differences.”<\/p>\n
Saleh was accompanied by his Somalian counterpart Ahmed Isse Awad and Ethiopia’s Workneh Gebeyehu who travelled to Djibouti to “advance dialogue” between the two nations, Ethiopian state media reported.<\/p>\n
Their visit came a day after the presidents of Somalia and Eritrea and Workneh met in Asmara.<\/p>\n
It is the latest rapprochement in the region after Ethiopia and Eritrea signed a peace pact in July ending two decades of cold war after a two-year border war that broke out in 1998.<\/p>\n
“I think it is cooling off, peace and stability that will lead to regional integration,” said Youssouf.<\/p>\n
– ‘Region heading towards peace –<\/p>\n
“Today the message that we have for the Djiboutian people, the Eritrean people and all in the region, is that the Horn of Africa is heading towards peace.”<\/p>\n
Djibouti government spokesman Naguib Ali Taher told AFP bilateral relations have been “interrupted” but that both maintain embassies in each other’s countries.<\/p>\n
Tensions between the two countries rose last year after mediator Qatar pulled its peacekeepers out of the disputed zone of Doumeira.<\/p>\n
This came after both Djibouti and Eritrea sided with Saudi Arabia in the row between Qatar and its Gulf neighbours.<\/p>\n
Djibouti then accused Eritrea of briefly moving troops into Doumeira, a piece of land jutting into the Red Sea that the two countries had previously squabbled over in 1996 and 1999.<\/p>\n
In April 1996 they almost went to war after a Djibouti official accused Asmara of shelling the town of Ras Doumeira.<\/p>\n
In 1999 Eritrea accused Djibouti of siding with Asmara’s arch-foe Ethiopia while Djibouti alleged its neighbour was supporting Djiboutian rebels and had designs on the Ras Doumeira region, which Eritrea denied.<\/p>\n
The clashes in 2008 came after Djibouti accused Eritrean forces of digging trenches on both sides of the border, moving several hundred metres (yards) into Djiboutian territory — which Asmara denied.<\/p>\n
Eritrea withdrew in 2010 after Doha stepped in to mediate and sealed a deal in which further dialogue would lead to the demarcation of the border — however this was never done.<\/p>\n
Djibouti asked both the African Union and the United Nations to help mediate the dispute after Qatar’s withdrawal.<\/p>\n
The warming of ties in the Horn of Africa has seen Ethiopia and Eritrea re-open air links, embassies and trade routes.<\/p>\n
Eritrea and Somalia meanwhile established diplomatic ties in July after more than ten years of tensions over accusations Asmara backed Islamic militia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Djibouti on Thursday hailed a new era in its relations with rival Eritrea, whose foreign minister paid a surprise visit to the country as part of a regional bid to soothe tensions between the neighbours. The two small Horn of Africa nations have been at loggerheads for decades over the disputed border region of Doumeira,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6237,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/so\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6236"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/so\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/so\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/so\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/so\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/so\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6236\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/so\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/so\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/so\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mustaqbalmedia.net\/so\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}