Ethiopia and Eritrea agree to normalise ties, reopen embassies Sunday July 08,2018

Ethiopia and Eritrea have agreed to restore relations following a landmark meeting between the two countries' leaders in Asmara, aimed at ending decades of diplomatic and armed strife.

The announcement on Sunday July 08,2018 capped weeks of whirlwind change, driven by new Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who was welcomed for face-to-face talks in the Eritrean capital by President Isaias Afwerki.

"We agreed that the airlines will start operating, the ports will be accessible, people can move between the two countries and the embassies will be opened," Abiy said at an official dinner.

"We will demolish the wall and, with love, build a bridge between the two countries," Abiy continued.

The sudden rapprochement will spell an end to a years-long cold war that has hurt both countries.

The Horn of Africa nations have remained at loggerheads since Ethiopia rejected a United Nations ruling and refused to cede to Eritrea land along the countries' border following a 1998-2000 war that killed 80,000 people

Once a province of Ethiopia that comprised its entire coastline on the Red Sea, Eritrea voted to leave in 1993 after a decades-long, bloody independence struggle.

The East African countries fought a bloody border war that erupted in 1998. The two-year war left more than 80,000 people dead and hundreds of thousands displaced.

A UN-backed peace agreement in 2000 awarded the disputed border territories to Eritrea, but the deal was never implemented.

The countries have skirmished since then in one of Africa's longest-running conflicts