Eritrea, Ethiopia: Crisis brews

2005-10-27 18:16

United Nations - In response to warnings of a dangerous crisis brewing between Ethiopia and Eritrea, a draft Security Council resolution demands that they immediately agree to an international commission's decision ruling on their border, which Ethiopia has rejected.

It also demands that Eritrea immediately lift restrictions on helicopter flights and the movement of UN peacekeepers in a border buffer zone and declares the council's "readiness to consider further action" if Eritrea refuses to comply.

Greece presented the draft resolution on Wednesday at a closed council meeting after Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned that peacekeepers faced an "alarming situation" in the border area as a result of the Eritrean restrictions and urged council members to take action to end the "dangerous crisis" and prevent another war.

Japan's UN Ambassador Kenzo Oshima, who chairs the council's working group on peacekeeping operations, said there was a suggestion in the council that he should travel to Eritrea but no decision has been made yet.

Quick action is needed

"I think there was near consensus that the council needed to take some quick, prompt action," he said.

Eritrea informed the United Nations that it was banning helicopter flights by UN peacekeepers in its airspace in a buffer zone with Ethiopia starting on October 5. It also banned UN vehicles from patrolling at night on its side of the 1 000km Temporary Security Zone dividing the two countries.

The zone was established after a December 2000 peace agreement that ended a two-and-a-half-year border war between the Horn of Africa neighbours. The deal provided for an independent commission to rule on the position of the disputed border, but Ethiopia refused to accept the panel's April 2002 decision, which awarded the town of Badme to Eritrea.

The draft resolution stresses that that peace cannot be achieved unless the border is fully demarcated and calls on both parties "to refrain from any threat of use of force against each other."

It calls on both countries "to implement completely and without further delay the decision of the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission and to create the necessary conditions for demarcation to proceed expeditiously."

Under the proposal, both sides would meet with the commission to agree on the immediate resumption of the demarcation work.

The draft resolution "demands that the government of Eritrea reverse immediately and without precondition" the ban on UN helicopter flights and other travel restrictions.

- AP