The Ethiopian government led by new premier Abiy Ahmed announced a slew of reforms on Tuesday, including ending its border dispute with Eritrea and opening key economic sectors, among them Ethiopian Airlines, to foreign investment.

Both steps represent major policy changes by Abiy, the first prime minister in modern Ethiopia from the country's largest ethnicity the Oromo who took office in April after years of anti-government protests and political turmoil.

A former province, Eritrea became Ethiopia's bitter foe after a 1998-2000 border conflict followed by Ethiopia's refusal to accept the ruling of a UN-backed boundary commission that divided up contested territory between the two countries.

In a surprise announcement that came on the same day as parliament's repeal of a nationwide state of emergency, the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) said it would "fully implement" the boundary commission's 2002 decision.

"The Eritrean government should take the same stand without any prerequisite and accept our call to bring back the long-lost peace of the two brother nations as it was before," the EPRDF wrote on Facebook.

Since the formal end of the border conflict, Ethiopia and Eritrea have taken starkly different paths, with Eritrea growing increasingly isolated while Ethiopia has exerted power across the region, fuelled by an economy that has expanded at one of the fastest rates in Africa.

But a shortage of foreign currency is seen as threatening that economic growth, which dropped to 8.5 percent this year from 10.9 percent in 2017, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Looking to increase the players in the economy, the ruling party said it would sell minority stakes in Ethiopian Airlines and the sole telecom company Ethio Telecom to foreign investors -- a reversal of years of policy that closed those sectors to outsiders.

The move would "enable Ethiopia-born citizens living abroad who've long wished to work on the development of their country, and... foreigners who have the knowledge and foreign currency, to play a positive role in our growth," said the statement issued after a meeting of top EPRDF officials.

Ethiopia became landlocked in 1993 after Eritrea, which comprised the country's entire Red Sea coast, voted to leave.

But the neighbours were soon at war over the demarcation of their shared border, a conflict that would leave 80,000 people dead and degenerate into a stalemate after the impasse over the UN ruling.

Hundreds would die in subsequent years in periodic border clashes as the two countries would try to undermine each other elsewhere.

The UN Security Council sanctioned Eritrea in 2006 for supporting Al-Shabaab extremists in Somalia, the same year Ethiopia invaded to battle the group.

Ethiopia faced its own challenges starting in late 2015 when the Oromos and later the country's second-largest ethnicity the Amharas protested against the one-party EPRDF government.

Hundreds died and tens of thousands were arrested in the revolt that pushed Ethiopia to declare a nationwide state of emergency for 10 months starting in October 2016.

The unrest was seen as a key reason why Hailemariam Desalegn made the unprecedented move to resign as prime minister in February, which the government followed by declaring another state of emergency for six months.

He was replaced by Abiy, who took office amid high hopes he would move the EPRDF away from its authoritarian past.</s>Ethiopia's Parliament announced an early end to a state of emergency and then the ruling party decided to unilaterally, and without any conditions, accept a peace deal with its neighbor Eritrea.</s>The Ethiopian government led by new premier Abiy Ahmed announced a slew of reforms on Tuesday, including ending its border dispute with Eritrea and opening key economic sectors, among them Ethiopian Airlines, to foreign investment. Both steps represent major policy changes by Abiy, the first prime minister in modern Ethiopia from the country’s largest ethnicity the Oromo who took office in April after years of anti-government protests and political turmoil.

A former province, Eritrea became Ethiopia’s bitter foe after a 1998-2000 border conflict followed by Ethiopia’s refusal to accept the ruling of a UN-backed boundary commission that divided up contested territory between the two countries.

In a surprise announcement that came on the same day as parliament’s repeal of a nationwide state of emergency, the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) said it would “fully implement” the boundary commission’s 2002 decision.

“The Eritrean government should take the same stand without any prerequisite and accept our call to bring back the long-lost peace of the two brother nations as it was before,” the EPRDF wrote on Facebook.

Since the formal end of the border conflict, Ethiopia and Eritrea have taken starkly different paths, with Eritrea growing increasingly isolated while Ethiopia has exerted power across the region, fuelled by an economy that has expanded at one of the fastest rates in Africa.

But a shortage of foreign currency is seen as threatening that economic growth, which dropped to 8.5 percent this year from 10.9 percent in 2017, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Looking to increase the players in the economy, the ruling party said it would sell minority stakes in Ethiopian Airlines and the sole telecom company Ethio Telecom to foreign investors — a reversal of years of policy that closed those sectors to outsiders.

The move would “enable Ethiopia-born citizens living abroad who’ve long wished to work on the development of their country, and… foreigners who have the knowledge and foreign currency, to play a positive role in our growth,” said the statement issued after a meeting of top EPRDF officials.

Ethiopia became landlocked in 1993 after Eritrea, which comprised the country’s entire Red Sea coast, voted to leave.

But the neighbours were soon at war over the demarcation of their shared border, a conflict that would leave 80,000 people dead and degenerate into a stalemate after the impasse over the UN ruling.

Hundreds would die in subsequent years in periodic border clashes as the two countries would try to undermine each other elsewhere.

The UN Security Council sanctioned Eritrea in 2006 for supporting Al-Shabaab extremists in Somalia, the same year Ethiopia invaded to battle the group.

Ethiopia faced its own challenges starting in late 2015 when the Oromos and later the country’s second-largest ethnicity the Amharas protested against the one-party EPRDF government.

Hundreds died and tens of thousands were arrested in the revolt that pushed Ethiopia to declare a nationwide state of emergency for 10 months starting in October 2016.

The unrest was seen as a key reason why Hailemariam Desalegn made the unprecedented move to resign as prime minister in February, which the government followed by declaring another state of emergency for six months.

He was replaced by Abiy, who took office amid high hopes he would move the EPRDF away from its authoritarian past. AFP</s>Ethiopia's Parliament announced an early end to a state of emergency and then the ruling party decided to unilaterally, and without any conditions, accept a peace deal with its neighbor Eritrea.

Ethiopia has made some surprising moves. The ancient nation in the Horn of Africa ended a state of emergency. The country's parliament did that sooner than planned, and then the ruling party decided to unilaterally, without any conditions, accept a peace deal with neighboring Eritrea. NPR's Eyder Peralta joins us from his base in Nairobi to talk this through. Hey there, Eyder.

INSKEEP: Wow. What does this mean for Ethiopia?

PERALTA: Well, I mean, it's a huge deal, and it's potentially historic. And, as you said, this is - it's also really surprising. It's worth looking back at where Ethiopia was just this March when the state of emergency was declared. The country had just been going through three years of bloody protests. People were complaining about corruption and lack of basic rights. And there was also ethnic overtones to all of this. The Oromos and the Amharas were protesting against the Tigrayans, who controlled a lot of the government. And, you know, it was so bad that when I was there, people were worried that this could devolve into a war. And then suddenly - and again, this was just in March - the Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn resigns, and the ruling party, which has been in power since 1991, when it overthrew the communist Derg regime, they get together and they do something even more dramatic. They pick a young Oromo Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who had basically come to represent the opposition. And in just two months, the prime minister starts to shake things up in one of the most repressive regimes in Africa.

INSKEEP: So wait a minute. So they chose a prime minister from the outgroup - if we can try to simplify this a little bit - and are making moves to try to bring the country together.

PERALTA: Well, what's interesting is, they picked somebody from inside of the ruling party, but that had sort of come to represent the outgroup.

INSKEEP: OK. I see. And so they made this move to lift the state of emergency. They're also accepting this peace deal with Eritrea. That was a war that at one time resembled World War I trench warfare. I guess it hadn't been so intense recently, but they're settling it there. What is the broader thing that's driving this right now?

PERALTA: Well, I mean, I think the cynical view is that this is about survival, that, you know, this was a regime on the ropes, that it had a never-ending protest movement in its hands, you know? And it also had this huge - has this huge lack of foreign currency. So in some ways, you know, this was a regime that either had to make changes to basically stay in power. I mean, a more generous explanation is that this is about ambition. The Ethiopian government has made no secret that it wants its country to quickly industrialize and become a regional powerhouse. A lot of these...

INSKEEP: Well, let me ask about that, Eyder, because I've been reading that China has made big investments in Ethiopia and had been pressuring the Ethiopian government to settle some of these long-running ethnic and other disputes. Is that part of what's happening here?

PERALTA: It might be. China sort of gave a warning that said that they're going to be more careful in its investment in Ethiopia. But a lot of the problems here are domestic. I think this government is really trying to stay in power. Again, the ruling party has been in power since the '90s, and they have a lot of issues with their own people and they're trying to satisfy those issues. You know, they've released political prisoners and, you know, they say they're going to make some more democratic changes that people have been calling for on the streets.

INSKEEP: Eyder, thanks very much. Always a pleasure talking with you.

INSKEEP: That's NPR's Eyder Peralta reporting on developments in Ethiopia.</s>Image copyright AFP Image caption Ethiopia had refused to remove its troops from the region around Badme, the dusty market town at the centre of the dispute

Ethiopia's governing coalition has announced it will fully accept and implement the peace deal that ended its border war with Eritrea.

It says it will accept the outcome of a 2002 border commission ruling, which awarded disputed territories, including the town of Badme, to Eritrea.

This will end a dispute with Eritrea that sparked Africa's deadliest border war in 1998.

Tens of thousands of people were killed in two years of fighting.

The two sides have remained on a war footing as Ethiopia had, until now, refused to accept the ruling of the border commission, which was set up as part of a peace deal.

As a result, Ethiopia had refused to withdraw its troops out of the disputed areas - leading Eritrea to accuse Ethiopia of forcefully occupying its territory.

"The Eritrean government should take the same stand without any prerequisite and accept our call to bring back the long-lost peace of the two brother nations as it was before," the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) wrote on Facebook.

Eritrea had refused to hold any talks with Ethiopia until it agreed unconditionally to the border commission's findings.

Ethiopia's new Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed had promised to make peace with the country's northern neighbour after taking power earlier this year.

BBC World Service Africa editor Will Ross says if Ethiopia does now remove soldiers from the disputed land, it would show it is serious about seeking peace.

Timeline

24 May 1993 : Eritrean independence from Ethiopia officially declared

: Eritrean independence from Ethiopia officially declared 6 May 1998 : Border war begins

: Border war begins 18 June 2000 : Agreement on Cessation of Hostilities signed

: Agreement on Cessation of Hostilities signed 12 December 2000 : Algiers Peace Agreement signed

: Algiers Peace Agreement signed 13 April 2002: The Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission delivered its "final and binding" ruling

Read more:</s>ADDIS ABABA, June 5 (Reuters) - Ethiopia will "fully accept and implement" a peace agreement with Eritrea that was signed in 2000, its ruling coalition announced on Tuesday.

The Horn of Africa neighbours have remained at odds since a 1998-2000 war over a disputed town that a boundary commission subsequently handed to Asmara but which Addis Ababa rejected.

Asmara has long felt betrayed by world powers, who they say failed to force Ethiopia, now with a population of 97 million, to abide by the boundary arbitration ruling. Ethiopia long said it wanted talks on implementation, which Asmara refused.</s>The Ethiopian government led by new premier Abiy Ahmed announced a slew of reforms on Tuesday, including ending its border dispute with Eritrea and opening key economic sectors, among them Ethiopian Airlines, to foreign investment.

Both steps represent major policy changes by Abiy, the first prime minister in modern Ethiopia from the country’s largest ethnicity the Oromo who took office in April after years of anti-government protests and political turmoil.

A former province, Eritrea became Ethiopia’s bitter foe after a 1998-2000 border conflict followed by Ethiopia’s refusal to accept the ruling of a UN-backed boundary commission that divided up contested territory between the two countries.

In a surprise announcement that came on the same day as parliament’s repeal of a nationwide state of emergency, the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) said it would “fully implement” the boundary commission’s 2002 decision.

“The Eritrean government should take the same stand without any prerequisite and accept our call to bring back the long-lost peace of the two brother nations as it was before,” the EPRDF wrote on Facebook.

Since the formal end of the border conflict, Ethiopia and Eritrea have taken starkly different paths, with Eritrea growing increasingly isolated while Ethiopia has exerted power across the region, fuelled by an economy that has expanded at one of the fastest rates in Africa.

But a shortage of foreign currency is seen as threatening that economic growth, which dropped to 8.5 percent this year from 10.9 percent in 2017, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Looking to increase the players in the economy, the ruling party said it would sell minority stakes in Ethiopian Airlines and the sole telecom company Ethio Telecom to foreign investors — a reversal of years of policy that closed those sectors to outsiders.

The move would “enable Ethiopia-born citizens living abroad who’ve long wished to work on the development of their country, and… foreigners who have the knowledge and foreign currency, to play a positive role in our growth,” said the statement issued after a meeting of top EPRDF officials.

Ethiopia became landlocked in 1993 after Eritrea, which comprised the country’s entire Red Sea coast, voted to leave.

But the neighbours were soon at war over the demarcation of their shared border, a conflict that would leave 80,000 people dead and degenerate into a stalemate after the impasse over the UN ruling.

Hundreds would die in subsequent years in periodic border clashes as the two countries would try to undermine each other elsewhere.

The UN Security Council sanctioned Eritrea in 2006 for supporting Al-Shabaab extremists in Somalia, the same year Ethiopia invaded to battle the group.

Ethiopia faced its own challenges starting in late 2015 when the Oromos and later the country’s second-largest ethnicity the Amharas protested against the one-party EPRDF government.

Hundreds died and tens of thousands were arrested in the revolt that pushed Ethiopia to declare a nationwide state of emergency for 10 months starting in October 2016.

The unrest was seen as a key reason why Hailemariam Desalegn made the unprecedented move to resign as prime minister in February, which the government followed by declaring another state of emergency for six months.

He was replaced by Abiy, who took office amid high hopes he would move the EPRDF away from its authoritarian past.</s>Ethiopia announced Tuesday that it would accept a 2000 peace agreement with Eritrea over their disputed border, potentially a major step toward resolving one of post-colonial Africa’s bloodiest and most protracted conflicts.

A statement by the governing party of Ethiopia, the second-most populous country in Africa, said it would “fully accept and implement” the agreement with Eritrea, a former province of Ethiopia, which was signed but never honored.

“The Eritrean government should take the same stand without any prerequisite and accept our call to bring back the long-lost peace of the two brother nations as it was before,” the governing party, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, said in the statement.

The countries fought a war from 1998 to 2000 over their border dispute, which left about 80,000 people dead. They signed a peace agreement in 2000, but the Ethiopians never accepted the findings of a boundary commission established by the agreement.</s>Ethiopia on Tuesday decided to fully implement the so-called Algiers agreement and the decisions of the Ethiopia-Eritrea Boundary Commission.

This decision was made by the executive committee of the ruling party -- the Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Democratic Front, according to the FANA broadcasting service, a government-affiliated media house.

The Algiers agreement was signed on Dec. 12, 2000 following the 1998-2000 war between the two countries.

As part of the deal, the international Boundary Commission had decided to give a chunk of the territory called Badme to Eritrea.

The executive committee called on Eritrea to implement the agreement without any precondition to reinstate good neighborly ties and peace between the peoples of the two countries, FANA said.

After fighting the bloody war, the two countries maintained what political experts dub as “a no-war, no-peace situation”.

According to the Algiers agreement, Eritrea would compensate Ethiopia for a huge amount of shipments it confiscated after the liberation of Eritrea at the Ports of Asab and Massawa, which had served as the sole sea outlets of Ethiopia back then.</s>Ethiopia says it will fully accept the outcome of a border commission, ending a dispute with Eritrea that sparked Africa's deadliest border war in 1998.

The ruling EPRDF coalition says the decision was taken in an effort to make peace with neighbouring Eritrea.

Tens of thousands of people were killed in two years of fighting.

The two sides have remained on a war footing as Ethiopia refused to accept the ruling of the border commission set up as part of a peace deal in 2000.

The commission said that some disputed areas, including the border town of Badme, were in Eritrea.

As a result, Ethiopia refused to withdrawn its troops out of the disputed areas.

This led Eritrea to accuse Ethiopia of forcefully occupying its territory.

Eritrea has refused to hold any talks with Ethiopia until it agrees unconditionally to the border commission's findings.

Ethiopia's new Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed promised to make peace with the country's northern neighbour after taking power earlier this year.

BBC World Service Africa editor Will Ross says if Ethiopia does now remove soldiers from the disputed land it would show it is serious about seeking peace.
• 13 April 2002: The Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission delivered its "final and binding" ruling
• Brothers at war in the Horn of Africa
Ethiopia agrees to "fully accept" the outcome of the Algiers Agreement of 2000, which ruled that disputed areas, including the border town of Badme which Ethiopia currently occupies, are Eritrean territory.