Axworthy departs from region without meeting Isayas

UN Special Envoy Lloyd Axworthy expressed disappointment on Monday after failing to visit Eritrea at the start of his peacekeeping mission. He described Eritrea as the "missing voice" in his efforts to overcome the stalled three-year peace process between it and neighbouring Ethiopia. Eritrea has criticised the appointment of a UN special envoy as a way of opening the door to renewed negotiations despite the existing "final and binding" ruling on its border with Ethiopia. "I am disappointed I am not going to Eritrea," Axworthy said at the end of his five-day visit to Ethiopia, where he met the Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. "It would be very important to talk to the Eritreans. They have a very important case to make and I would like to deal with it," he stressed. Ethiopia and Eritrea fought a bloody two-and-a-half-year war, which claimed about 70,000 lives, and was sparked by their contested 1,000-km frontier. Axworthy said he did not believe renewed conflict was likely, but advised the international community to remain vigilant. "You should always be concerned when there is an impasse, because people can run with it," he told reporters as he prepared to leave the capital, Addis Ababa. "What has been encouraging from the people I have talked to is that there seem to be very deep feelings and commitments not to go to war; people have had enough of it. But the international community should stay alert to the possibility, and one thing we have learned over the years is prevention is much better than trying to work for a cure," he added. Under the Ethiopian-Eritrean peace deal concluded in Algiers in 2000, an independent boundary commission, based in The Hague, was established to demarcate their common border, thereby to defuse bilateral tensions. But Ethiopia rejected the commission's April 2002 ruling as "illegal", because it placed Badme – a symbolic border town where the war flared up – in Eritrea. The commission then suspended its work because of the resulting deadlock, while UN peacekeepers maintain the fragile peace between the two nations. Axworthy insisted that his mission was an "honest" one, as opposed to its being an alternate mechanism, saying he remained optimistic that he would be able to meet Eritrean President Isayas Afeworki. "To me, there are two parties to this dispute, and the two parties must take the responsibility of resolving it," he said. "If one of the parties has decided not to participate in it, it slows down the efforts of the international community to be helpful. The only missing voice so far that I haven’t heard from directly are the Eritreans," Axworthy added as he prepared to fly to Libya before heading back to New York. He said it was unlikely that he would meet Isayas, who is himself due to travel to Libya for an African Union (AU) summit to be held there on 27 and 28 February. But Axworthy was expected to hold talks in Libya with senior AU officials, who, he said, were of vital importance to the stalled peace process. The Libyan leader, Col Mu'ammar al-Qadhafi, was also expected to play a key role in helping move it forward by virtue of his close relationship with Isayas.