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The two-day talks come a week after Ethiopian forces reportedly ambushed Sudanese troops, killing four and wounding more than 20.
Sudan and Ethiopia began talks in the Sudanese capital Khartoum to demarcate their border, as Addis Ababa said incidents in a disputed area jeopardized friendly ties between neighbors.
The recent violence “does not resemble the cordial relationship that exists between our two countries,” Ethiopia’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Demeke Mekonnen said Tuesday.
“You are jeopardizing the agreements we have reached to maintain the status quo,” he said, according to opening remarks circulated by the Ethiopian embassy in Khartoum.
The two-day talks in the capital came a week after Ethiopian forces reportedly ambushed Sudanese troops along the border, leaving four dead and more than 20 injured.
Since then, Sudan has deployed troops in the al-Fashaqa border region, the site of sporadic fighting.
The most contested region is an area of 250 square kilometers (100 square miles) where Ethiopian farmers cultivate fertile land on the territory claimed by Sudan.
The area borders Ethiopia’s troubled Tigray region, where fighting broke out early last month, prompting tens of thousands of Ethiopians to flee and cross into Sudan.
But Demeke said that since last month, Ethiopia has seen “attacks organized by Sudanese military forces with heavy machine guns” and armored convoys along the border.
He said the forces looted the agricultural products of Ethiopian farmers, destroyed their camps and hindered their harvesting. “Several civilians have been killed and wounded,” he said.
‘Friendly settlement’
Demeke called for “reactivating existing mechanisms and finding an amicable solution” while warning against “unnecessary escalation.”
Addis Ababa had previously downplayed the ambush reported last week, saying it did not threaten the relationship between the two countries.
A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry in Addis Ababa told the AFP news agency that Ethiopian security forces “repelled a group of low-ranking (Sudanese) officers and farmers who had invaded Ethiopian territory.”
Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and his Ethiopian counterpart Abiy Ahmed agreed to talks on the sidelines of a Djibouti summit of the regional bloc of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development on Sunday.
Sudan’s minister in charge of the cabinet, Omar Manis, led the Sudanese delegation on Tuesday.
Sudan and Ethiopia share a 1,600-km (almost 1,000-mile) border, with border demarcation meetings previously held between 2002 and 2006.
In 1902, an agreement was reached to draw the border between Great Britain, the colonial power in Sudan at the time, and Ethiopia, but the agreement lacked clear demarcation lines.
The last border talks between Sudan and Ethiopia took place in May in Addis Ababa, but another meeting scheduled for the following month was canceled.
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