Upon taking office, Abiy stated his willingness to negotiate an end to the Ethio-Eritrean conflict. In June 2018, it was announced that the government had agreed to hand over the disputed border town of
Badme to Eritrea, thereby complying with the terms of the 2000
Algiers Agreement to bring an end to the state of tension between Eritrea and Ethiopia that had persisted despite the end of hostilities during the
Ethiopia-Eritrea War.
[71] Ethiopia had until then rejected the international boundary commission's ruling awarding Badme to Eritrea, resulting in a
frozen conflict (popularly termed a policy of "no war, but no peace") between the two states.
[82]
During the national celebration on 20 June 2018, the president of Eritrea,
Isaias Afwerki, accepted the peace initiative put forward by Abiy and suggested that he would send a delegation to Addis Ababa. On 26 June 2018, Eritrean Foreign Minister
Osman Saleh Mohammed visited Addis Ababa in the first Eritrean high-level delegation to Ethiopia in over two decades.
[83]
In
Asmara, on 8 July 2018, Abiy became the first Ethiopian leader to meet with an Eritrean counterpart in over two decades, in the
2018 Eritrea–Ethiopia summit.
[84] The very next day, the two signed a "Joint Declaration of Peace and Friendship" declaring an end to tensions and agreeing, amongst other matters, to re-establish diplomatic relations; reopen direct telecommunication, road, and aviation links; and facilitate Ethiopian use of the ports of
Massawa and
Asseb.
[85][86][87] Abiy was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for his efforts in ending the war.[6] (emph. added)