Eritrea's historic endeavors to promote the cause of internal peace and stability in the Sudan are well known to merit emphasis. As it will be recalled, Eritrea played a pivotal role in the articulation of the Declaration of Principles (DOP) that were announced in 1994 by IGAD to serve as a framework of solution to Sudan's perennial internal conflicts that had raged incessantly since its independence in 1956.

In the subsequent years, Eritrea worked unreservedly, together with its regional partners and in conjunction with the IGAD Partners Forum, to persuade the Government of the Sudan and the SPLM/A to advance the cause of peace through the implementation of the DOP.

When a new round of peace talks resumed in Kenya in 2002, at first in Machakos and later in Naivasha, under the auspices of IGAD but with the active involvement of the United States, Norway and the United Kingdom, Eritrea recognized the critical leverage embodied in the combined initiative and exerted all necessary efforts to ensure its success. Eritrea's envoy to the peace talks contributed his share to the success of the tortuous negotiations. Eritrea further used its historic and excellent ties with the SPLM and the NDA to help lubricate the negotiations and to bring about a lasting peace to the Sudan hinged on Justice and the equality of all its constituent parties.

The horrendous crimes committed by the Government in Khartoum in Dharfur and the atrocities and injustices it has continued to perpetrate in the eastern and other underprivileged sections of the country in spite of the Naivasha Peace Agreement have remained a cause of concern to the Government of Eritrea and the international community as a whole. While concrete negotiations are a matter for the Sudanese protagonists, Eritrea has all along maintained that enduring peace in the Sudan will be realized through the consolidation of the Naivasha Peace Agreement and the extension of its underlying principles to similar cases of injustice. In this spirit, Eritrea has exerted constructive efforts in the parallel peace negations held in Libya and Nigeria recently between the government of the Sudan and the Dharfur opposition movements.

Eritrea's constructive engagement in, and positive contributions to, the peace process in the Sudan emanate from its historic and good-neighborly ties with the peoples of the Sudan as well as its recognition of the ramifications of durable peace in the Sudan to regional stability and security. Eritrea's constructive engagements in the Sudan have never been prejudiced by reactive considerations for counterbalancing the irresponsible and provocative conduct of the NIF regime in Khartoum, which had pursued throughout the years a regional and international agenda of destabilization. Eritrea recognizes that these are problems of the past since the implementation of the Naivasha Agreement will render the NIF's fundamentalist agenda obsolete. In this context, groundless accusations leveled against Eritrea by elements in the current NIF Government are either pretexts put forth in order to derail the entire peace process and renege from its commitments or deliberate diversion to foment problems in the region.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the State of Eritrea
Asmara, 28 June 2005.