NEWS RELEASE

Tuesday, April 6th, 1999

IRAN DENIES ERITREA’S ALLEGATIONS

The Iranian Embassy in Addis Ababa ‘categorically denies’ the news broadcast by the BBC quoting from IRNA that ‘the speaker of the Ethiopian Council of People’s Representatives called for the Islamic Republic of Iran’s mediation efforts between Ethiopia and Eritrea’.

In reality, however, the Ethiopian speaker never made such a statement. The Iranian Embassy issued a strong denial in a letter (Ref: 3129) to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in an official press release (Ref: 3128) the Embassy emphasised ‘that no such remarks were made’.

If the Ethio-Eritrean conflict is going to be resolved peacefully, the Eritrean government needs to refrain from engaging in such tactics of fabrication as it has been doing for nearly eleven months. For its part, Ethiopia finds such strategies only to be counter-productive and stands firm in its commitment to a peaceful resolution of the conflict based on acts of good faith.

For copies of the Iranian documents contact the Press Office of the Ethiopian Embassy, London

ERITREA MAKES FALSE ALLEGATIONS

The recent allegation by the Eritrean government regarding the supposed disappearance of 1,000 of its nationals who had been permanently residing in Ethiopia is completely false.

The Ethiopian government as a matter of policy never arrests and secretly detains individuals and Eritrea’s accusation to the contrary is a lie. Ethiopia challenges the Eritrean authorities to provide a list of names of the supposedly missing individuals as well as involving third parties such as the ICRC in the verification process.