ETHIOPIAN PM MEETS US DEPUTY ASST SECRETARY OF STATE KARL WYCOFF

ADDIS ABABA, March 5 (NNN-ENA) — Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has held discussions here with the visiting United State Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Bureau, Karl Wycoff.Meles held fruitful discussions at his office here Thursday with Wycoff on ways to bolster bilateral relations, especially in the political, security, and economic sectors.The two sides also exchanged ideas on the current crisis in Somalia, in Sudan’s Darfur region, and on other regional and international issues of common interest, according to a senior government official who attended the discussions Meles reaffirmed to Wycoff that Ethiopia, as a neighbouring country of both Somalia and Sudan, would continue to support efforts geared towards ensuring a lasting peace and stability in Somalia and in Darfur.
The prime minister also reiterated to the US official that the government of Ethiopia was working day and night to make the 4th National Elections due to be conducted in May 2010 free, fair, and credible.Wycoff told journalists later that he shared valuable ideas with the prime minister on Ethiopia-US co-operation as well as on regional and international issues of mutual interest.Also on Thursday, Meles met the chairman of Arab Bank for African Development, Yousef Ibrahim Al-ssam, and called on the bank to extend the financial assistance it provides to Ethiopia.Meles stressed the need for the bank to further strengthen its financial support it makes to rural electrification, water supply and sanitatian projects being undertaken in the country.Noting that relations between Ethiopia and the bank had been strengthened, Meles thanked the bank for its financial assistance made to country in the last 15 years.The bank’s chairman said he and Meles had discussed extensively bilateral relations and the projects which Ethiopia and the bank would carry out in the years ahead.At another event Thursday, Ethiopia and the bank signed a loan agreement amounting to 10 million USD to finance a rural electrification project around Jijiga and Degehabbur in Ethiopia’s Somali State.
The loan wills enable Ethiopia to achieve its objective of improving the socio-economic development of the rural population.Economic and Finance Minister, Sufian Ahmed and Bank Chairman Yousef Ibrahim Al-bessam signed the agreement. — NNN-ENA