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ADDIS ABABA, Dec. 26-- The Ethiopian and Eritrean leaders on Thursday vowed to cement recent gains in the rapprochement of bilateral ties as the two former arch-rivals seek to deepen socio-economic integration. This came on Thursday as the visiting Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki arrived in Ethiopia, accompanied by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, and laid a foundation stone for the construction of a new Eritrea Embassy facility in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. Afwerki, who is in Ethiopia together with a high-level Eritrean delegation including the country's foreign minister Osman Saleh as well as other senior Eritrean government officials, during the occasion expressed the Red Sea nation's resolve to start a new chapter after the two countries saw two decades of armed standoff. The Eritrean president "reiterated Eritrea's resolute decision to work with requisite vigor to recoup lost opportunities by three generations to bolster new chapter of cooperation between the two countries," the Eritrean Minister of Information, Yemane Gebremeskel, quoted Afwerki as saying during the cornerstone-laying event. The Ethiopian premier on his part also stressed that the construction of the new Eritrean embassy "will further cement the diplomatic ties between the two countries," state-affiliated Fana Broadcasting Corporate (FBC) quoted Ahmed as saying. "During the visit, we had discussion on potential areas of economic integration and how to exploit them," Ahmed said, adding that the two neighboring countries "will do more to lift the peoples of the two countries out of poverty." | 
