"The suffering on both sides is unspeakable because the peace process is deadlocked. This must change for the sake of our common good," Fitsum Arega, the chief of staff for the Ethiopian prime minister's office, said early this month.
Ethiopia became landlocked in 1993 after Eritrea, which comprised the country's entire Red Sea coast, voted to leave.
But the neighbours were soon at war over the demarcation of their shared border, a conflict that would leave 80,000 people dead and degenerate into a stalemate.
Hundreds would die in subsequent years in periodic border clashes after Ethiopia's refusal to accept the ruling of an UN-backed boundary commission that divided up contested territory between the two countries.
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES