NAIROBI (Reuters) – Ethiopia’s prime minister Abiy Ahmed said on Tuesday he had reached an agreement with the leader of neighbouring Sudan to peacefully settle a border dispute that has led to clashes.
Abiy met Sudan’s military leader, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, in Kenya’s capital Nairobi, on the sidelines of a meeting for the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), an eight-member regional bloc for the horn of Africa and neighbouring states.
“We both made a commitment for dialogue (and) peaceful resolution to outstanding issues,” Abiy tweeted on Tuesday.
There was no immediate statement from the Sudanese side about the meeting.
The long-running dispute over a contested fertile border region, al-Fashqa, has fuelled a surge in tensions between the two countries in recent years, including clashes.
In the latest trading of accusations between both nations, last month Sudan accused Ethiopia’s army of executing seven Sudanese soldiers and a civilian who had been taken captive.
The men had been seized on Sudanese territory on June 22 and taken into Ethiopia where they were killed, according to the Sudanese foreign ministry.
Ethiopia denied responsibility and blamed the killings on a local militia.
A day after the countries traded accusations over the killings, an Ethiopian official said Sudan’s armed forces had fired heavy artillery during clashes in the disputed area.
(Writing by Elias Biryabarema; Editing by James Macharia Chege and Peter Graff)
