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ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia – The long-time president of Eritrea arrived in Ethiopia on Saturday for his first visit in 22 years in a surprise diplomatic thaw between rivals of the time.
welcome the President, Isaias Afwerki, whose visit is the last step to end the state of war.
The new Ethiopian Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, broke the ice last month by adopting a peace deal that ended a two-year border. conflict
. Mr Abiy visited Eritrea last weekend for talks with Mr Afwerki, and last week the East African neighbors said their state of war was over. .
Eritrea will reopen its embbady in Addis Ababa, closed since 1998, Ahmed Shide, a spokesman for the Ethiopian government told reporters. He had said earlier that the embbady would reopen Sunday.
Some Ethiopians have compared the restoration of relations with Eritrea, one of the most closed countries in the world, to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Telephone links were opened and aliens in both countries began randomly dialing other people on the other side of the border.
The first flights of Ethiopian Airlines bound for Eritrea are scheduled to begin on Wednesday
early 1990s, but a border war breaks out between nations, and they are locked in bitter hostilities that make tens of thousands of deaths.
The international community welcomed the meeting as a welcome development in a critical and often unstable region. Horn of Africa, near one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world and in front of the Arabian Peninsula.
The former embbady of Eritrea in Addis Ababa was renovated quickly and is expected to open during the visit of Mr. Isaias. Mr. Isaias and Mr. Abiy are also expected to attend a concert of about 25,000 people representing local artists on Sunday.
Ethiopians walking along the streets to see Mr. Isaias' motorcade chanted songs criticizing the Front liberation of the Tigrayan people. For years, the front was the strongest political party of the Ethiopian government coalition and it adopted a hostile stance to Eritrea.
It changed when Mr. Abiy took power in April and began a breathtaking reform. , which has about 105 million inhabitants and is the second most populous nation in Africa.
The gesture of peace with Eritrea was most surprising. Eritrea, a country of five million inhabitants along the Red Sea, has been ruled by Mr Isaias since independence in 1993 after years of rebel war
while the two countries share close cultural links. The refusal to hand over disputed areas was used by Mr. Isaias, 72, to keep Eritrea in a state of military readiness, with a mandatory conscription system that drove thousands of Eritreans to flee in Europe, in Israel and elsewhere. [19659002Lesobservateursspéculentmaintenantsurlaquestiondesavoirsilafindescombatsavecl'Éthiopieconduiral'Érythréelongtempscritiquéeparlesgroupesdedéfensedesdroitsàs'ouvriretàadopterdenouvelleslibertés[19659004]. Landlocked Ethiopia has sought out opportunities for its growing economy and has already signed agreements to use the port facilities of Eritrea.
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