Ethiopia, U.S Begin Conducting Justified Accord to Promote Regional Security

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Addis Ababa July 15/2019 Ethiopia National Defense Force , United States military, and other partner nations started conducting Justified Accord (JA) 2019, a command headquarter and company-level field training exercise in Addis Ababa today.

The 17 days long exercise will include militaries from the nations of Brazil, Burundi, Canada, Djibouti, France, Germany, Italy, Kenya, Netherlands, Rwanda, Somalia, Uganda, United Kingdom and other international organizations.

The exercise is aimed at enhancing the capacity of participating staff and forces in peacekeeping operations in support of AMISOM and promotes security in Africa.

Moreover, training will be delivering for journalists, medical professionals and logistic suppliers, which would help them to effectively conduct their respective duties at the time of peacekeeping operations.

In his remark on the opening ceremony, Ethiopian Defense State Minister Fisha Weldesenbet said such a multinational exercise is an important opportunity to handle the complex security problem in the Horn of Africa.

Revealing that the Horn is a crossroad that connects Africa to Europe, Middle East, and Asia, the State Minister said “This alone makes security of our region a global strategic importance.”

“We are facing threats from transnational terrorism, ongoing refugee and IDPs crisis, and internal ethnic and clan disputes”, he said adding that these are “Driven by the nature of our geography where many of our borders are quite porous serving as transit for migrants, terrorist and armed group that are difficult to control”

In light of this, conducting multinational military training is vital to collectively handle the challenges we encountered, he added.

United States Ambassador to Ethiopia, Mike Raynor said on his part that the training has positive impact on the regional security that would support United Nations and African Union as they carry out their mandates to support security in the region.

The Justified Accord exercise has been conducted for more than 20 years annually, Raynor said this year’s exercise expanded in scope that includes medical training.

In this regard, the trainees will have gained valuable experience emergency medicine and surgical skills, he revealed.

Ethiopia host Justified Accord training for the second time, the first was in 2017.

Ethiopia’s significant contribution for global peace keeping forces and its resolute commitment to promote peace in the region makes Ethiopia a very fitting host for an exercise like Justified Accord, Ambassador Raynor added.

Ethiopian News Agency
2023