Ethiopia, Eritrea border pact

2006-03-15 00:04

New York - Ethiopia and Eritrea have agreed to resume marking out their disputed border, after two days of talks in London with international mediators, the United Nations said on Monday.

The breakthrough was announced in a statement by UN chief spokesperson, Stephane Dujarric, who welcomed the accord.

Legal experts from the two Horn of Africa neighbours had attended the London meeting, which began last Friday, at the invitation of an international boundary commission appointed to mark out the border under a peace agreement ending a two-year border war.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan was "pleased to hear that the parties participated in the meeting constructively" and was "encouraged by their agreement to arrangements for the demarcation of the boundary, which the commission delimited in April 2002", Dujarric said.

The 1998-2000 border war killed about 70 000 people.

The peace accord ending the conflict required both sides to agree in advance to accept the border as laid out by the panel.

But Ethiopia later rejected the new boundary, leading to the disbandment of the commission in 2003 before it could complete the demarcation process.

A frustrated Eritrea then banned UN helicopter flights over its territory and imposed other restrictions on the peacekeeping mission.

This triggered troop movements on both sides, increasing tensions along the border and leading to the current impasse.

- Reuters