Ogaden Online: The official homepage of Ogaden on the Internet

Desalegn and Oqubay travel round USA

Thursday, 07 April 2011 04:27 administrator

The Ethiopian diplomats on post in the USA are discreetly preparing meetings with the Diaspora in several American cities.

Deputy Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn arrived in Washington last week, accompanied with Arkebe Oqubay, an advisor to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi with the rank of minister, to attend a series of meetings with handpicked members of the Ethiopian Diaspora (ION 1304). The first of these meetings, chaired by Desalegn on 13 March at the Gaylord National Harbor Hotel in Maryland, near Washington DC, did not go too well. Some opponents had got wind of the event and came along to cause a disturbance.

The Ethiopian Ambassador to the United Nations in New York Tekeda Alemu and his colleague Girma Birru, the Ethiopian Ambassador to the USA, will step up their caution in preparing the next series of public meetings. About fifteen separate meetings will be held on the same day, 9 April, in major towns including Las Vegas, Atlanta, New York, Los Angeles, Washington and Chicago. Attendees will be invited by name and will have to prove their identity to enter the event. Ethiopian officials flown in especially from Addis Ababa will present the five year Growth and Transformation Plan devised by the EPRDF government. However, in one of these invitation letters, Takeda Alemu warned the potential participants that these meetings on the Growth and Transformation Plan should be "conducted in a transparent, free and constructive manner" and "in good faith".

Set as favorite

Bookmark

Email this

Comments (0) Add Comment