The position of Ali Mousa as the tripoint between Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti is not the result of an agreement between the three countries. In December 1948 the British administering Eritrea refused to attend a meeting with the other two parties to determine the exact location of their tripoint, set in a 1908 treaty as 60 km inland from the Red Sea.
The position of Ali Mousa, serving as the point of intersection between Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Djibouti, was not the outcome of an agreement among the three nations. In December 1948, the British authorities in charge of Eritrea refused to attend a meeting with the other two countries to determine the exact location of their tripoint, as stipulated in a treaty from 1908.