Afeworki's visit on Monday made him "the first Horn of Africa head of State to come aboard the flagship, USS Mount Whitney, since its arrival in the region on Dec. 12, 2002," said the statement, which was received by AFP on Wednesday.

The Eritrean leader was accompanied on his official visit to the warship by Foreign Minister Ali Seid Abdella, Defense Minister Sebhat Ephraim, and Eritrean military officials.

The day after Afeworki's visit to the Mount Whitney, US General John Sattler, who is in charge of the Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA), the US military mission in Africa's eastern Horn region, visited Eritrea from his headquarters in the tiny country of Djibouti, the statement said.

Afeworki and Sattler discussed "several topics, primarily focusing on the CJTF-HOA mission to detect, disrupt and defeat transnational terrorist groups in the Horn of Africa region."

The two men also "reaffirmed their desire for cooperation in the areas of security, information sharing, commitment to defeating terrorism and establishing conditions necessary for long-term stability throughout the Horn of Africa region," it said.

"The CJTF-HOA Mission has no link to ongoing actions in Iraq, but is founded on the Global War on Terrorism, with a specific focus on the Horn of Africa region. Further, CJTF-HOA operations are not supporting or contingent upon issues in Iraq," the statement said.

Afeworki and Sattler had met previously in January.

Eritrea is on a list of countries released by the US State Department who have asked to be included in a "Coalition for the Immediate Disarmament of Iraq."

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