European Union Development Commissioner Louis Michel gave a warm welcome to President Isaias Afwerki despite accusations of human rights violations, praising his diplomacy over Sudan and his decision to ban the forced circumcision of young girls.

“I was very, very honored to receive him in the Commission,” he told a joint news conference.

“This is … an important event, an international signal for the EU and for Eritrea. I have very high expectations in this new kind of relations between the Commission and Eritrea.”

Eritrea last month quit the east African regional bloc IGAD, in a feud over the group’s support of Somalia’s interim government — strongly backed by Ethiopia — Eritrea’s bitter foe since a 1998-2000 war.

Afwerki dismissed charges by Addis Ababa that Eritrea was behind a rebel attack in southeast Ethiopia last month in which 74 people were killed and seven Chinese workers were seized.

“It’s become a habit, it’s become an addiction to blame anything on Asmara so don’t be surprised,” he said, adding that the sheer distance between Eritrea and the remote Ogaden area of Ethiopia where the attack occurred made any link impossible.

Security experts say Asmara has long supported Ethiopian rebels groups to pressure Addis Ababa, which Eritrea denies.

“KEY PARTNER”

Michel made no public mention of human rights, media freedom or growing tension between Eritrea and Ethiopia, saying he hoped a regular political dialogue with Asmara would help improve the mood for solving all problems in the region.

“Everybody knows Eritrea is a key partner and a key actor in the Horn,” he said, citing efforts to bring peace to Somalia, where Asmara has backed an Islamist movement ousted from power in Mogadishu by Ethiopian military intervention in February.

A November report to the United Nations on arms embargo violations in Somalia said Eritrea repeatedly armed and trained Islamist militants who opposed the Somali interim government.

Asmara denies this, but has hosted Islamist leaders in Eritrea. It has repeatedly criticized both Ethiopia and the Somali interim government and accused them of undermining what it called the Islamists popularly supported movement.

Ethiopia’s ambassador in Brussels, Berhane Gebre-Christos, at a news briefing coinciding with the president’s visit, accused Eritrea of playing a destructive role in the region.

“It has become a pariah state as far as its role is concerned in Somalia,” he said.

Gebre-Christos said the European Union should call on Afwerki to abandon “terrorism.” “What he is doing is terrorism,” he said. “The European Union should tell him unambiguously that he has to cease from terrorist acts.”

Eritrean president accuses detractors of distorting facts

BRUSSELS (AFP) – Eritrean President Issaias Afeworki on Friday brushed off questions of military intervention in Ethiopia and Somalia and accused detractors of distorting the facts.

Afeworki spoke to reporters in Brussels after a meeting with EU Development Commissioner Louis Michel who described the encounter as “a constructive discussion”.

Asked about accusations from Ethiopia that Eritrea supported rebels who killed 77 people and kidnapped seven Chinese workers in an attack in Ethiopia last month, Afeworki replied that it had become “an addiction to blame anything on us”.

“How can it be possible” for Eritrean forces to go all the way along the coast” and infiltrate there, he asked.

Questioned about the stalemate in the dialogue between Ethiopia and Eritrea, Afeworki said that there were “no problems with Ethiopia”.

Ethiopia and Eritrea fought a bitter territorial war between 1998 and 2000 and are still at odds over their unresolved border dispute.

Afeworki, on his first visit to the EU, said the conflict between the two countries could only be solved if an agreement was implemented which awarded Badme, the disputed town that triggered fighting between the neighbours, to Eritrea.

“We want to see nothing more, we want to see nothing less,” he said.

When a South African journalist quizzed him about freedom of the press in Eritrea, the president replied by asking what freedoms those living in South African shantytowns enjoyed.

On the particular case of Davit Isaak, an Eritrean-born journalist with Swedish nationality who has been held without trial since 2001, Afeworki asked why Sweden was so interested in handing out passports to Eritreans.

Asked about UN allegations that Eritrea was aiding Islamist rebels in Somalia, the Eritrean leader replied that the country had “disappeared from the map in the last 15 years” and his only interest was in seeing it restored.

Somalia has been without an effective government since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre sparked a bloody power struggle.

“The United Nations has been saying Eritrea has 2,000 troops in Mogadishu … for me it’s a joke,” he said.

“You can hear anything about any situation and very easily point fingers at someone to divert the issue and make a case by distorting facts and using the media to cover up,” he added.

Sixteen years of unrest in Somalia and tension between Ethiopia and archrival Eritrea has long been a concern in the Horn of Africa region.

The European Union is planning to build stronger relations with Eritrea, hoping that the country will help solve the crises in the troubled Horn of Africa, the EU’s development chief Michel told the joint press conference.

He added that the EU plans fresh food and infrastructure aid for Eritrea.