Diplomatic Briefing
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Newsline: Eriterian envoy blames Ethiopia for diplomatic row
Kenya’s ambassador to the United Nations is expected to seek audience with the President of the UN Security Council regarding Nairobi’s military intervention in Somalia. At the same time, the UN’s top body is considering a request by Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki to address the full council. Mr Afwerki is believed to be eager to head off additional UN sanctions against Eritrea related in part to his country’s alleged involvement inSomalia’s civil war. Kenya has accused Eritrea of supplying arms to the Al-Shabaab militants that Kenyan forces are now battling in southern Somalia. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has remained silent on Kenya’s intervention inSomalia. Portuguese UN ambassador Jose Filipe Moraes Cabral told reporters that he will be meeting “at the beginning of next week” with Kenya’s ambassador, Mr Macharia Kamau. Mr Kamau wrote to the Security Council last month to explain why its forces have entered Somalia. He said then thatKenya’s action was being coordinated with Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government.
http://mobile.nation.co.ke/News/-/1290/1267924/-/format/xhtml/-/lf5v8dz/-/
US embassy cables: Eritrean president fears US plans to kill him
Eritrean President Isaias Afewerki suspects the United States has plans to assassinate him by bombing his residence, according to leaked secret American diplomatic cables. The Cable from the US embassy in Eritrea released on December 15 on WikiLeaks, quoted US ambassador to Eritrea, Ronald McMullen also as saying that Isaias also believed Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has attempted to have him killed over a decade ago. The Eritrean president was nearly assassinated while returning to Asmara after a family holiday in Kenya, 14 years ago. “Isaias thinks the United States will attempt to kill him by missile strike on his residence in the city of Massawa,” the cable said, quoting a U.N. official. “He is paranoid and believes Ethiopian PM Meles tried to kill him and that the United States will attempt to assassinate him,” McMullen wrote to his superiors in Washington on November 5, last year. Following its independence in 1993, Eritrea (a former region in Ethiopia), went in to a bloody border war with Ethiopia between 1998-2000. The war killed over 70,000 people. Last week, The African Union’s Panel of the Wise, at its 9th assembly in Algiers, Algeria has urged a launch for a new and binding peace process to resolve the long-standing border row between Ethiopia and Eritrea.
http://www.sudantribune.com/Eritrean-president-fears-US-plans,37344
