Ethiopia and Eritrea warned world is losing patience

A British minister warned Ethiopia and Eritrea today that the international community is running out of patience with the deadlocked peace process.

British Foreign Office Minister Chris Mullin said the international community has not ruled out sanctions to force both sides to accept a ruling by an international border commission intended to end their border dispute.

Speaking in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, he said it would take “an act of statesmanship” by Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to break the current deadlock over the three-year-old peace deal.

“It is very difficult for the outside world to understand when two small, extremely poor countries get involved in a war that consumes perhaps nearly 100,000 lives over a very small amount of territorial difference on the border,” Mullin said.

“You have to start compromising and moving toward the bigger picture.”

Mullin said the €149.9m a year the international community pays for the UN peacekeepers who patrol the border cannot go on indefinitely.

Ethiopia and Eritrea fought a bloody two year border war that ended in a peace deal in December 2000. Under the agreement an independent boundary commission was set up to end the war.

But Ethiopia is contesting the ruling that places the town of Badme, where the war first flared up, in Eritrea and to hand over parts of Irob. Fears have been growing that tensions could once again flare up into war between the two neighbouring countries.