President Mubarak and Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki held talks Thursday. The talks focused on the developments in Africa and armed conflicts in the African Horn, tension between Ethiopia and Eritrea. They also discussed items of the agenda of the African Union summit which will be held in Khartoum next month as well as bilateral relations.

 

The two leaders continued their talks at a luncheon banquet hosted by President Mubarak in honour the Eritrean president. The lunch was attended by Prime Minister Dr. Ahmed Nazif, Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit, Chief of Presidential Staff Dr. Zakaria Azmi, and Egyptian ambassador to Eritrea Ibrahim Khalil Abdallah.

 

From the Eritrean side, the banquet was attended by Abdallah Mahmoud Jaber, the official in charge of organization at the people's front for democracy and justice, acting Foreign Minister Omar Mahmoud and Eritrean ambassador in Cairo Mohamed Omar Taroum.

 

The talks dealt with the current escalation between Eritrea and Ethiopia and border demarcation between the two countries in light of Algiers agreement, Presidential spokesman Suleiman Awwad said on Thursday.

 

The two leaders also stressed the need for enhancing  Egyptian-Eritrean relations in the different fields, Awwad told reporters following the Egyptian-Eritrean summit.

 

President Mubarak is very interested to see an end to the escalation between Eritrea and Ethiopia, Awwad said, noting that this crisis was one of the issues which UN Secretary General Kofi Annan tackled with President Mubarak over phone on Wednesday.

 

President Mubarak is exerting his utmost effort to contain the Eritrean-Ethiopian escalation, so that the two countries may not be dragged into military confrontation as happened in 1998 and 2000.

 

During his meeting with Mubarak, Eritrean President Isaias Afworki stressed his country's insistence to implement UN Security Council resolution 1640, issued last month, on demarcation of borders between Eritrea and Ethiopia, noted presidential spokesman Awwad.

 

He added that, according to informal UN talks held Wednesday, sanctions might be imposed on the two African states in case they did not comply with the UN resolution.

 

Answering a question about an Eritrean demand to withdraw UN forces from Eritrea, Awwad clarified that Eritrea had only asked to pullout some UN elements and state representatives who, according to Eritrean officials, were not exerting enough effort to implement the UN demarcation resolution.

 

Asked about Ethiopian stance, presidential spokesman Suleiman Awwad said that Ethiopian Premier Meles Zanawi, during a meeting with President Mubarak on the sidelines of the last NEPAD summit, had made it clear that his country wanted to talk resolution 1640 over first before actually demarcating the borders.

 

Ethiopia, Awwad added, says that no dialogue can be done unless the demarcation resolution has been implemented, while Ethiopia wants to discuss first some humanitarian considerations related to divided families living in border villages which are scattered between the two countries.

 

Talks also touched on the facilities which would be extended by Eritrea to the Egyptian fishing fleet in the Eritrean water in order to avoid sporadic incidents from time to time. President Mubarak has discussed the Ethiopian views with Eritrean President Afworki during the meeting, Awwad noted.