MOSCOW, October 17. /TASS/. Russia welcomes the decision to grant the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed for his contribution to Ethiopian-Eritrean settlement, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said during Thursday’s press briefing.

"We consider the decision of the Nobel Committee to grant the Nobel Peace Prize to Prime Minister of Ethiopia Abiy Ahmed a worthy assessment of his role in the Ethiopian-Eritrean settlement and the normalization of the general situation in the Horn of Africa region," the diplomat said.

Russia has always supported African states and will continue to do it "with the aim of stabilizing the situation in the region and ensuring sustainable development and constructive cooperation on the entire African continent," Zakharova stated.

The 2019 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed "for his efforts to achieve peace and international cooperation, and in particular for his decisive initiative to resolve the border conflict with neighboring Eritrea," Chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee Berit Reiss-Andersen informed last week.

Abiy Ahmed became Ethiopia’s Prime Minister in April 2018. He declared that he wants to renew peace talks with Eritrea. In close cooperation with Eritrea’s President Isaias Afwerki, Ahmed worked out the principles of peace treaty to bring the two countries from the dead-end of "neither peace nor war," the Norwegian Nobel Committee explained. These principles are enshrined in the declarations that Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and President Isaias Afwerki signed in July and September last year. "An important premise for the breakthrough was Abiy Ahmed’s unconditional willingness to accept the arbitration ruling of an international boundary commission in 2002," the committee’s decision reads.

On May 6, 1998, armed confrontation on the border between Ethiopia and Eritrea provoked a war between the two states. On December 12, 2000, the sides signed a peace agreement in Algeria; however, the territorial dispute remained unresolved until June 5, 2018, when Ahmed declared that the Ethiopian government fully recognizes the conditions of the peace agreement. On July 9, 2018, both leaders signed a joint declaration of peace and friendship in Asmara, which put an end to the 20-year-long conflict. On September 16 of the same year, they signed the final peace agreement. As a result of the conflict, over 370,000 Eritreans and 350,000 Ethiopians were killed.