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Nairobi: Ethiopia and Sudan will strengthen ways of resolving "minor" border clashes after Sudan said Ethiopian troops attacked a Sudanese army camp and killed about 19 people, Ethiopian state media said on Friday.
Sudan's military said the attack happened on Monday in the Jabel Hantub area of Sennar state. Ethiopian officials played down the charge and denied any soldiers were involved.
Ethiopia's state news agency ENA said Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin met the chief of Sudan's intelligence forces, Salah Gosh, in Addis Ababa on Friday.
"It was disclosed during the discussion that minor misunderstandings leading to infrequent clashes occur between the peoples living along the common border," ENA said.
"According to senior foreign ministry officials who attended the discussion, the two parties reached agreement to strengthen the implementation of systems designed earlier by the two countries to solve the problem," it said, without elaborating.
Sudan signed a north-south peace deal in 2005 which ended Africa's longest civil war and also improved relations with its neighbours across east Africa.
Earlier this week, a Sudanese security source and another government official said a decision by Sudan to give refuge to several local Ethiopian officials a few weeks earlier might have prompted Monday's attack.
It was not clear why the officials sought refuge in Sudan. Ethiopia is fighting rebels from the Oromo region which borders Sudan and who want greater autonomy for their areas.
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