Ethiopia says threat of war on Eritrea border fading

Sept 30, 2006 (ADDIS ABABA) — Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said Saturday that the threat of war with neighboring Eritrea over their disputed border was fading.

“As time passes the risk of war is diminishing not increasing,” Meles told journalists at a news conference in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

On Friday, the U.N. Security Council extended the mandate of peacekeepers in Eritrea and Ethiopia by four months, but threatened to overhaul the mission if the two sides don’t make progress toward demarcating their border.

Ethiopia has refused to implement an international commission’s April 2002 ruling which awarded the key town of Badme to Eritrea. Eritrea meanwhile has expelled and arrested U.N. staff and imposed restrictions on patrols of the border area.

Meles said Ethiopia had accepted the ruling but didn’t say whether his country would implement the ruling, which was supposed to be “final and binding”.

The Security Council has cut the number of peacekeepers deployed in the two countries from 3,500 to 2,300 in frustration over the lack of progress.

Meanwhile, Meles told journalists that if Somalia’s Islamic militia attacked that country’s virtually powerless government it would be cause for concern for both Ethiopia and the international community at large.

Witnesses say Ethiopian troops are already in Somalia, but the Ethiopian government has denied this.

“I don’t believe things are out of control in the Horn of Africa,” Meles said.

(AP/ST)