NAIROBI, Kenya — Eritrea has appointed its first ambassador to neighboring Ethiopia in two decades, the government said on Saturday, as the two countries pushed on with a surprise rapprochement.

The development was part of a head-snapping series of diplomatic moves between the two nations, after they formally declared an end this month to their “state of war,” a two-decade standoff that followed a brutal border conflict that claimed about 80,000 lives.

The job of ambassador went to Semere Russom, who was Eritrea’s education minister and a former envoy to the United States, Information Minister Yemane G. Meskel said on Twitter.