TWO British diplomats with a keen interest in running are planning a “run of peace” along the disputed border between Ethiopia and Eritrea in an attempt to defuse tension between the two countries, which are threatening to go back to war five years after a conflict in which 70,000 people died.

Bob Dewar, British ambassador in Addis Ababa, and Tim Clarke, head of the European commission delegation, hope that sporting stars from Ethiopia will be joined on the run by top athletes from Eritrea.

They have already signed up the Olympic gold medallist Haile Gebrselassie, who is a hero in Ethiopia, and are targeting Zersenay Tadesse, the Eritrean Olympic bronze medallist who won the Great North Run in Britain earlier this year.

In a symbolic gesture, Gebrselassie and Tadesse could shake hands at a border bridge used by refugees fleeing between the countries.

Dewar, 56, who has run the London and Stockholm marathons, said that road races were a good way of bringing people together. “These two countries produce some of the greatest distance runners in the world,” he said. “I think it will appeal to a lot of people because everyone wants peace.”

Clarke — the brother of Charles Clarke, the home secretary — believes that the peace run could help to prevent the two countries from sliding back into conflict. “I was inspired by a friend who organised a race between Bosnians and Serbs,” he said. “And I asked myself, why can’t we do that here?” Another Briton involved in the initiative is Richard Nerurkar, who finished fifth in the marathon at the Atlanta Olympics and who organises the 10km Great Ethiopian Run — being held for the fifth time today. Dewar and Clarke will be among more than 25,000 athletes competing.

Some 100,000 Ethiopian troops are facing 400,000 Eritreans along the 600-mile frontier. The two countries bicker endlessly about Badme, a frontier town seized by the Eritreans in 1998 and taken back by the Ethiopians the following year.

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