Security Council calls on Eritrea to withdraw troops

Oct 17, 2006 (UNITED NATIONS) — The U.N. Security Council called on Eritrea Tuesday to immediately withdraw troops and tanks from a buffer zone established after a 2 1/2-year border war with Ethiopia and urged both countries to refrain from any threat or use of force.

Hedi Annabi, the assistant secretary-general for peacekeeping, told the AP after briefing the council that Eritrea’s movement of 1,500 troops and 14 tanks into the area on Monday morning was “the most serious violation” of the zone since the Horn of Africa neighbors signed a peace agreement in Algiers, Algeria in December 2000.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said “we understand the troops that had entered are still there.”

Security Council members expressed deep concern at Eritrea’s violation of the cease-fire agreement and called on Eritrea “to immediately withdraw its troops from the Temporary Security Zone” which is 15 miles (24-kilometers) wide and 1,000-kilometers (620-miles) long.

“Members of the Security Council call on both parties to show maximum restraint and to refrain from any threat or use of force against each other, to avoid any action which may lead to an escalation of the tension between the two countries and to adhere to previous commitments they have made,” the council’s statement said.

Japan’s U.N. Ambassador Kenzo Oshima, the current council president, told reporters after reading the statement that “we do not believe that that action, although deplorable, is immediately going to lead to war.”

Relations between Eritrea and Ethiopia have been consistently strained since Eritrea gained its independence from the Addis Ababa government in 1993 following a 30-year guerrilla war. A 3,800-strong U.N. peacekeeping force has been monitoring the buffer zone since the cease-fire agreement was signed.

Tensions have increased recently because of unrest in neighboring Somalia, where the two countries are supporting opposing factions.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said that the Eritrean troop movement was a violation of the cease-fire, but that Ethiopia would not make similar moves.

“I don’t think it changes things fundamentally, but this is a clear violation,” of the peace agreement, Meles told The Associated Press on the sidelines of an African Union Peace and Security Council meeting. “We are not going to respond to minor provocations militarily.”

Yemani Ghebremeskel, director of Eritrean President Isaias Aferwerki’s office, dismissed the accusations and said that Ethiopia was in violation of the peace deal for failing to accept an international ruling that awarded the key border town of Badme to Eritrea.

He said that the soldiers had entered the western border region to carry out development work and the tanks had accompanied them for protection. “An army is an army and needs protection,” said Yemani.

“This is not a provocative act,” Yemani told The Associated Press by telephone from the Eritrean capital, Asmara. “This is sovereign Eritrean territory, so how can this be a breach of a cease-fire agreement?”

“This statement is rubbish because it has no sense of balance and does not talk about the 1,001 times that Ethiopia has violated the agreement by forcefully occupying our territory,” Yemani said.

In apparent frustration at Ethiopia’s refusal to implement the binding ruling on their disputed border in 2002, and the lack of U.N. action to pressure Ethiopia to comply, Eritrea banned U.N. helicopter flights in its airspace in October 2005. Two months later, it banned U.N. night patrols and expelled Western peacekeepers.

The Security Council called on Ethiopia to fully implement the international commission’s ruling and it called on Eritrea to immediately lift all restrictions on U.N. operations.

Dujarric said the acting head of the U.N. peacekeeping mission met with Eritrean officials on Tuesday “to file a protest over the actions” and also briefed Ethiopian officials.

“We very much hope that Eritrean defense forces will move out of the area which they entered with over 1,500 troops and some 14 tanks,” he said.

At U.N. headquarters, Undersecretary-General for Peacekeeping Jean-Marie Guehenno said he saw Eritrea’s U.N. ambassador on Tuesday morning.

“I reminded him of the obligation of the parties with respect to the cease-fire agreement, and we are very concerned about the situation,” Guehenno said.

Oshima said the Security Council also authorized him to meet the Eritrean and Ethiopian ambassadors which he planned to do later Tuesday.

(AP)