March 20, 2006 (Niarobi) - Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki on Monday called on Eritrea and Ethiopia to engage in dialogue so as to defuse tension along their common border.

Addressing a regional summit in Nairobi, Kenya's capital, Kibaki said a steady buildup of tension between IGAD members and Horn of Africa foes Ethiopia and Eritrea over their unresolved frontier dispute that has threatened to escalate into a full-scale war in the recent months may threaten current efforts by international community to forge a lasting solution to settle the conflict.

"Kenya firmly believes that dialogue is the only effective way of easing tensions as the first step towards the peaceful settlement of cross border disputes," Kibaki said at the opening session of 11th Summit of Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Heads of State and Government.

"We strongly believe that there is a window of opportunity to resolve the simmering tensions amicably," said Kibaki who assumed the chairmanship of the IGAD Heads of State and Government.

The Kenyan leader called on the two countries to adhere to the December 2000 Algiers Peace Agreement and the relevant UN Security Council Resolutions in order to find a lasting solution of the their border dispute.

After Ethiopia and Eritrea signed a peace accord ending their 1998-2000 border war, UN Mission in Eritrea and Ethiopia (UNMEE) was deployed to monitor a Temporary Security Zone (TSZ) separating the two Horn of Africa countries.

Eritrea has been critical of the UN for not forcing Ethiopia to accept the border delineated in 2002, awarding Badme -- the town that triggered the conflict -- to Eritrea.

Last month, the UN Security Council urged the two parties to sit down with the commission charged with setting a permanent border and to abide by its decisions.

The two neighboring countries recently revived border talks in London to break a volatile deadlock which has raged on for years.

After that meeting convened on March 10 in London, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said he was pleased by the constructive participation of both parties, and expressed hope that it would allow the commission's decision to be implemented without further delay.

Source: Xinhua