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China’s Horn of Africa envoy tells regional peace conference he is ready to mediate disputes
- Offer at first-of-its-kind peace and governance gathering in Addis Ababa finds Beijing positioning itself as a ‘different kind of external actor’
- Interest in conflict-prone region runs high and analysts see thorny challenges ahead while multibillion-dollar investments keep coming
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Jevans Nyabiagein Nairobi
Beijing’s special envoy to the Horn of Africa has offered to mediate disputes in the region, where China’s multibillion-dollar investments have held firm amid long-simmering strife.
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Speaking in Addis Ababa on Monday at a peace and governance conference focused on the Horn of Africa, Xue Bing said the region had benefited from a unique geographical location and abundant natural resources but in recent times had faced instability.
“I am ready to provide mediation efforts for the peaceful settlement of disputes based on the will of countries in this region,” Xue said at the conference organised by Beijing.
But the envoy, who was appointed to the role in February, acknowledged “complicated and intertwined ethnicity, religion and boundary issues” that could be “difficult to handle, as many of them date back to colonial times”.
The Horn, which includes Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan, has long been wracked by civil wars, Islamist insurgencies and military coups.
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