OAU peace process enters critical phase

Diplomatic moves, led by Italy and also involving Libya, to broker an end to the Ethiopia-Eritrea war have entered a delicate and critical phase in the run-up to the OAU summit meeting in Algiers on 12 July, a diplomatic source told IRIN on Thursday. Much hope was resting on the incoming chair of the OAU, Algeria, carrying more weight and having "a more concrete engagement" with the process than the outgoing chair, Burkina Faso, the source said. A number of recent suggestions by Italy, described as "starting mechanisms" to build trust and facilitate the implementation of the OAU framework agreement - nominally accepted by the two countries -, were being considered in the run-up to the Algiers summit, he said. The Italian proposals attempted to provide guarantees to Ethiopia that a ceasefire would not mean acceptance of the status quo, namely Eritrea's occupation of Badme and its environs, and to Eritrea that redeploying troops from the area would not mean acceptance of Ethiopia's sovereignty over it, he added. If Eritrea rejected the OAU's apparent interpretation that it should withdraw from all territories occupied since fighting began in May 1998, then the OAU peace process was effectively at an end and "we have simply war without any visible means of resolving it", the diplomat added.