aicha el basri, researcher at the arab center for research and policy studies and the former spokesperson for the african union. in virginia, etana dinka, assistant professor at james madison university, focusing on the political history of ethiopia and africa. a warm welcome to each of you. this is going to put ethiopia in a difficult position. it was not that long ago that there was going to be movement on the issues between the two countries, between ethiopia and sudan, particularly when it came to the border dispute, but that has now gone out the window. where does ethiopia landed on this? >> to answer the question, we have to put the situation in context, in international and regional context. the ongoing war between the sudan armed forces and the rapid support forces has been basically managed by the united states. the crisis is being hardly managed by washington, which is trying to pull the parties to the conflict back to the negotiation table. the washington insists it is going to compete with china and russia and batson today and is a strategic point that we cannot afford to lose