UN begins scaling down Eritrea-Ethiopia peacekeeping mission

ASMARA, Dec 3 (AFP) — The UN peacekeeping mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) began scaling down its force this week, a spokesman announced.

The down-sizing “began on Wednesday and we will let you know when it will be finished. That will probably be in January 2005,” UNMEE spokeswoman Gail Bindley-Taylor Sainte told a news conference in Asmara on Thursday.

UNMEE currently numbers some 3,600 troops, of which some 500 are expected to leave, according to the UN.

On September 14, the UN Security Council extended UNMEE’s mandate until March next year but called for a reduction in its size, so as to reduce its annual budget, currently around 200 million dollars.

Its troops are mostly stationed in a buffer corridor in Eritrea that hugs the length of the 1,000 kilometre (600 mile) border between the two states.

Eritrea’s government spokesman said his country was not “bothered” by the reduction of the UNMEE forces.

“This reduction is a technical matter and we are not bothered by it,” Eritrean President Isaias Afeworki’s chief of staff Yemane Gebremeskel told AFP by telephone in Asmara.

“The size of their troops is a question for UNMEE to decide, but what matters to us is why UNMEE mandate has been extended to March 15, 2005 and why the demarcation of the border with Ethiopia has not been implemented,” Yemane said.

“Had the international community put pressure on Ethiopia to accept the demarcation, then the UNMEE mandate would have ended last year,” he stressed.

UNMEE was deployed in the wake of a 1998-2000 war fought between the two Horn of Africa states over their border.

In 2000, the two parties signed a peace accord under which they promised to respect a ruling on the path of the frontier which was decided by an independent Boundary Commission in 2002.

Addis Ababa subsequently rejected the commission’s decision, a position it maintained until last week, when it said it had accepted the “principle” of the Boundary Commission’s ruling.