Eritrea, Ethiopia fail to meet border deadline – UN

Dec 23, 2005 (ADDIS ABABA) — Ethiopia and Eritrea have failed to comply with a U.N. Security Council resolution to ease tensions over their disputed border, a senior U.N. official said Friday.

A Nov. 23 Security Council resolution gave both countries a 30 day deadline within which Ethiopia should have begun work to demarcate its border after a decision by an independent commission; Eritrea should have lifted restrictions on the U.N. Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea; and both countries should have pulled back troops on the border to their December 2004 levels.

Ethiopia hasn’t taken steps to begin demarcation of its contested boundary while neighboring Eritrea hasn’t lifted three-month old restrictions on U.N. peacekeepers, said Azouz Ennifar, a deputy head of the U.N Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Failure to meet these requirements means the two countries could face the threat of U.N. sanctions, something the Security Council will deliberate on next month, Ennifar said.

“The deadline for compliance with the whole Security Council resolution is today,” Ennifar said. “We haven’t seen any change on demarcation and until now no change on the restrictions.”

Ethiopia, however, pulled back a “significant number of troops” while Eritrea has said that its troops near the border are harvesting crops, Ennifar said. He said they are seeking further clarification on the Eritrean troops.

The U.N. mission has 10 days to report on Ethiopia’s and Eritrea’s compliance to Secretary-General Kofi Annan before the Security Council’s January meeting.

The U.N. established the mission after a two and a half year border war between the Horn of Africa neighbors. A December 2000 peace agreement provided for an independent commission to rule on the position of the disputed 1,000-kilometer border, while U.N. troops patrolled a 24-kilometer buffer zone between the two countries.

Ethiopia has refused to implement the international commission’s April 2002 ruling, which awarded the key town of Badme to Eritrea.

(AP/ST)