UN presses Ethiopia to accept border demarcation with Eritrea

Sept 13, 2005 (UNITED NATIONS) — The U.N. Security Council put new pressure on Ethiopia on Tuesday to end a five-year stalemate and fully accept a border with neighboring Eritrea marked out for it by an international commission.

A resolution adopted unanimously by the 15-nation council also extended the mandate of the 3,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force in Ethiopia and Eritrea for another six months, until March 15, 2006.

The mandate was to have expired on Thursday but U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan recommended its renewal after concluding the protracted stalemate in the peace process betweenthe two Horn of Africa nations was “inherently destabilizing.”

Under a December 2000 peace deal ending a two-year border war that killed more than 70,000 people, Ethiopia and Eritrea agreed to accept the conclusions of an independent panelon where their border should lie.

The commission issued its findings in April 2002 and Eritrea fully accepted them. But the process of marking out the new boundary broke down after Ethiopia objected that the flashpoint western town of Badme had been awarded to Eritrea.

The border war began when Ethiopia accused Eritrea of invading Badme.

Tuesday’s resolution “calls upon Ethiopia to accept fully the boundary commission’s decision and take the necessary steps to enable the commission to demarcate the border completely and promptly.”

It expresses the council’s intent to continue to monitor thepeace process and states that Ethiopia and Eritrea bear primary responsibility for implementing their peace agreement.

Both, it says, should “show leadership to achieve a full normalization of their relationship.”

The resolution also calls on Eritrea to lift restrictions placed on humanitarian aid organizations working in the drought-stricken region that has also experienced recent flash floods and locust swarms.

(Reuters/ST)