ESAT News (June 15, 2016)
Eritrea’s Ambassador to the UN, Girma Asmerom said on Wednesday that the world should condemn the military aggression by the TPLF regime in Ethiopia.
Speaking to ESAT, the Ambassador said Eritrea has filed its formal complaints to the UN Security Council and is waiting to hear from the world’s governing body.
Ambassador Asmerom said the military aggression over the weekend by the Ethiopian regime came after repeated and public saber-rattling by officials in Addis Ababa, referring to the war rhetoric by Ethiopia’s Prime Minister, Hailemariam Desalegn in some of the Parliamentary sessions.
He said Eritrea opted to the peaceful resolution of the issues between the two countries even when the regime in Ethiopia has continued to forcefully occupy Eritrea’s land that the International Tribunal at The Hague awarded to Eritrea.
The two countries agreed to a binding ruling by the UN Boundary Commission after a two year bloody war in 1998-2000. The Commission awarded Badme, the flashpoint of the two year war and other areas to Eritrea. Ethiopia still occupies Badme despite the binding international ruling. The two year war claimed the lives of at least 70,000.
On Sunday the two countries traded accusations after what appeared to be a skirmish at the Tsorena front of the heavily militarized border. Each side accused the other of launching unprovoked military attack.
Ambassador Asmerom said small scale skirmishes are not new on the 1200 km highly militarized border and that war has always loomed large on the border which he described has been in a trench warfare situation for many years now.