Carter to Conduct Talks in Atlanta on Ethiopia Strife

The Ethiopian government and Eritrean rebels fighting for independence have agreed to hold peace talks in Atlanta next month aimed at ending the 28-year-old civil war, former President Jimmy Carter said Thursday.

Carter agreed to act as an intermediary in the talks, to begin Sept. 7, after he met separately with both sides during a trip to Africa last month, a statement from Carter’s office said.

It said that no preconditions were set for the negotiations by either side and that the first round of talks is expected to “lay the groundwork for more sustained negotiations.”

Carter, whose mediation brought about the historic Camp David accords between Israel and Egypt in 1978, agreed to act as an observer throughout the talks.

In Addis Ababa, an Ethiopian Foreign Ministry spokesman said the government planned a statement on the talks today.

For the past 28 years, Ethiopia, one of the world’s poorest countries, has been fighting rebels advocating independence of the former Italian colony of Eritrea, which became a province of Ethiopia in 1962.

Ethiopia’s Marxist government is also battling guerrillas in the other northern province of Tigre.