Summary: An empirical likelihood method was proposed in [the first and the last author, J. Time Ser. Anal. 35, No. 3, 282--297 (2014; Zbl 1302.62187)] to construct a unified interval estimation for the coefficient in an AR(1) model, regardless of whether the sequence was stationary or near integrated. The error term, however, was assumed independent, and this method fails when the errors are dependent. Testing for a unit root in an AR(1) model has been studied in the literature for dependent errors, but existing methods cannot be used to test for a near unit root. In this paper, assuming the errors are governed by an \(\mathrm{AR}(p)\) process, we exploit the efficient empirical likelihood method to give a unified interval for the coefficient by taking the structure of errors into account. Furthermore, a jackknife empirical likelihood method is proposed to reduce the computation of the empirical likelihood method when the order in the AR errors is not small. A simulation study is conducted to examine the finite sample behavior of the proposed methods.