JULY 9, 2018
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - The United Nations chief said on Monday he believed the need for U.N. sanctions against Eritrea will no longer exist following its peace deal with Ethiopia.
“The sanctions were motivated by a number of events that took place, (but) it is my belief that those events will no longer exist ... If the reasons that led to the sanctions will no longer exist ... they will naturally become obsolete,” Antonio Guterres told reporters in Addis Ababa.
Guterres was visiting the Ethiopian capital a day after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Eritrea’s President Isaias Afkwerki declared that a “state of war” since a 1998-2000 conflict had given way peace and vowed to restore diplomatic and trade links.
Reporting By Aaron Maasho; Writing by Maggie Fick; Editing by Robin Pomeroy
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Ethiopia officially submitted a request to the visiting UN Secretary General [Antonio Guterres] for the UN to lift sanctions it imposed on Eritrea," PM AbiyAhmed's chief of staff Fitsum Arega said.