Security Council extends UN Eritrea-Ethiopia mission

July 30, 2007 (UNITED NATIONS) — The UN Security Council on Monday voted unanimously to extend by six months the mandate of the UN mission monitoring a festering border dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea and urge the parties to avoid provocative military activities.

The 15-member council reiterated its call on the two bitter Horn of Africa rivals “to show maximum restraint and refrain from any threat or use of force against each other.”

The council thus endorsed a request made by UN chief Ban Ki-moon earlier this month that the mandate of the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea be extended until the end of next January.

The resolution called on Eritrea to immediately withdraw its troops and heavy military equipment from the buffer zone between the two countries and urged both sides to de-escalate the situation by returning to December 2004 levels of deployment.

The two impoverished neighbors fought a bitter territorial war between 1998 and 2000 and are still at odds over the border.

An independent boundary commission that was formed after a 2000 peace agreement awarded the flashpoint town of Badme to Eritrea, but it remains under Ethiopian control.

Ethiopia insists the ruling should be altered since it will split families and villages between the two countries.

Eritrea repeatedly has rejected calls for renegotiation of the 2000 border ruling and instead introduced restrictions including bans on air patrols and UN peacekeepers monitoring the buffer zone, blaming the Security Council for failing to press Addis Ababa to fully implement the peace deal.

(AFP)