Eritrea To Open Ties With Iran

Eritrean President Isayas Afewerki

ASMARA, Dec 15, 2006 – Eritrea said on Friday it had sent an envoy to Iran to establish diplomatic and economic ties with Tehran as its relations with western nations sour over a border dispute with Horn of Africa neighbor Ethiopia.

Both Iran and Eritrea have routinely criticized the United States and the United Nations over what they say is foreign meddling in their affairs.

Andeab Meskel, head of Afro-Asia-Pacific desk at Eritrea's ministry of foreign affairs, said Iran had responded positively to initial efforts to establish ties. Tehran had no comment. The Red Sea state has also begun to strengthen ties over the last few months with Sudan and Libya, both of which have been highly critical of western nations.

Andeab denied that an anti-western agenda was behind Eritrea's blossoming relations with Iran, Libya and Sudan.

"It might seem like that, but no, we are not joining forces against the United States and we don't have any intention to do that," he said.

Analysts say Eritrea has in a matter of years gone from being a U.S. ally to a frontman for rival interests from Muslim north Africa and the Middle East.

Eritrea has lambasted the West for complicity with Ethiopia's rejection of a 2002 final and binding border decision delimiting their shared border.

The neighbors fought a three-year war over scrubby plains and dusty towns. A 2000 peace deal ended the conflict, but the nations soon became locked in a diplomatic stalemate after an independent border commission gave the flashpoint town of Badme to Eritrea.

The United States has accused Eritrea and Ethiopia of using Somalia as a proxy battleground to settle their border dispute, which both nations deny.

A recent U.N. report said Eritrea, Syria, Iran, Djibouti, Egypt, Libya and Saudi Arabia had sent soldiers, supplies or weapons to the Islamists in Somalia, while Ethiopia, Uganda and Yemen are supplying the Somali interim government.

Source: Reuters