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Ethiopia-Eritrea situation “seriously deteriorating”, Annan

Oct 25, 2005 (UNITED NATIONS) — UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has made an urgent appeal to the UN Security Council over the “seriously deteriorating” situation on the Eritrea-Ethiopia border after Asmara imposed restrictions on the UN peacekeeping force in the region, Annan’s office said Tuesday.

In a letter sent to the Security Council Monday, Annan said he had been informed in a letter from the Eritrean president that the UN leader and the security council had lost any “relevance” in their attempts to establish peace between Eritrea and Ethiopia.

Warning that the border dispute between the two sides is “seriously deteriorating”, Annan called for the council “to exert its maximum influence to avert a further deterioration of the situation and to ensure that the restrictions imposed on (UN peacekeepers) are lifted”.

“At the same time, after years of frustrating stalemate, it would be imperative for the Security Council — as the principal organ entrusted with the primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security — to address the underlying causes of the stalemate in the peace process, including those relating to the Ethiopian position on the decision of the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission,” Annan said in the letter.

The United Nations, which has 3,293 military personnel in the border area, said last week that it was no longer able to operate in nearly 60 percent of the zone and could not report with certainty on military operations on the Eritrean side of the border.

On Monday the United Nations said it was pulling some of its foreign staff away from the increasingly tense border after Eritrea slapped new restrictions on UN troops monitoring a buffer zone there.

Eritrea has repeatedly warned new conflict is looming because of Ethiopia’s refusal to accept the 2002 border delineation made by an international panel set up as part of the pact that ended the bloody 1998-2000 war.

The two countries have disputed the lines of their border region ever since Eritrea won its independence from Ethiopia in 1993.

(AFP/ST)

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