Asmara hosts meeting between Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia leaders

Leaders of three Horn of Africa countries are set to hold a meeting in the Eritrean capital, Asmara, the country’s Information Minister Yemane Meskel said on Wednesday.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has already arrived in the country where he was met by Eritrean president Isaias Afwerki at the Assab airport.

Somali president Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed Farmaajo is expected to join the duo later today for a tripartite summit. No further details of the agenda of this meeting was given.

Abiy’s return to Asmara is the first time since July 2018 when he arrived for an official visit leading to the signing of a peace deal that ended a protracted war between the two nations.

Since then, Afwerki reciprocated the visit when he went to Addis Ababa for a three-day official visit. The pair met again in the United Arab Emirates where the Crown Prince conferred on them medals for their role in the peace process.

Beside Assab, Abiy is expected to visit the other port city of Massawa and to also hold high-level discussions with Afwerki over the implementation of the July 9 agreement.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and his delegation were accorded warm welcome by President Isaias Afwerki when they arrived at Assab Airport this morning on a stop-over, two-day, visit to Eritrea on their way back home from the FOCAC Summit in Beijing. pic.twitter.com/l3Mu6dqOIX

— Yemane G. Meskel (@hawelti) September 5, 2018

Asmara has assumed a diplomatic hub of sorts in the region as Afwerki has in under two months hosted Ethiopian, Somali and South Sudanese leaders.

The last time an issue over the political implementation of the peace deal came us was last month when the Eritrean government sent a delegation led by Foreign Affairs minister Osman Saleh to Addis Ababa. The delegation went through Mogadishu before returning to Asmara.