ERITREA-ETHIOPIA: Annan recommends extension of UN mission's mandate

NAIROBI, 8 Sep 2005 (IRIN) - UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has recommended that the UN Security Council extend the mandate of the peacekeeping mission on the Ethiopia-Eritrea border until March 2006 and has stressed the need for both governments and the international community to do their utmost to ensure the border stalemate is resolved, as it "inherently destabilizing".

"I would like to call on the international community to spare no effort in bringing the parties together to engage in constructive dialogue aimed at moving the peace process forward and normalizing bilateral relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea," Annan said in his latest report to the Council on Ethiopia and Eritrea.

"I reiterate that the governments of Ethiopia and Eritrea have the primary responsibility to bring durable peace and security between their two countries," he added.

He further recommended that the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) assist the parties in continuing cooperation with other international partners in the mine-action sector by providing humanitarian demining assistance in the Temporary Security Zone (TSZ) on the two countries' border, as well as technical advice and coordination.

Annan noted that there had been a slight decline in the number of incidents of violence around the TSZ, which he attributed to the cooperation of the parties and the extensive activity of UNMEE.

He stressed, however, that the lack of progress towards resolving the fundamental stalemate posed a threat to military stability. He also said landmines and unexploded ordnance remained a major threat to the people working in the TSZ, hindering the return to normalcy of the affected people in both countries. Between June and August, unexploded ordnance had killed one child and injured four people.

Attempts to resolve the border dispute between the two countries since the end of a bloody two-year war in 2000 have so far proved fruitless.

Under the terms of the 2000 Algiers Peace Agreement that ended the conflict, both sides agreed to accept as binding a ruling made by an independent boundary commission regarding the border's position.

After initially rejecting this decision, Ethiopia in November 2004 accepted the commission's ruling "in principle", but called for dialogue on its implementation in disputed areas of the shared 1,000 km border.

Eritrea, on the other hand, rejected the idea of dialogue and insisted on full implementation of the commission's decision first.

The UN has about 3,000 peacekeepers patrolling the border between the two countries.

Annan noted that food insecurity remained Eritrea's main humanitarian challenge, with gaps in distribution and mounting malnutrition in the country.

Similarly, malnutrition had increased in parts of Ethiopia, and the number of vulnerable persons had risen from 3.1 million to 3.8 million, creating the need for an additional 66,198 tonnes of food aid. About 3.3 million Ethiopians would continue to require emergency food aid between August and December, the Secretary-General said.

He noted that UNMEE had continued to conduct induction training for new arrivals to the mission, which included issues such as sexual exploitation and abuse, gender and human rights, cultural sensitivity and HIV/AIDS in the workplace. The UNMEE HIV/AIDS unit had assisted in the preparation of training courses for the HIV/AIDS learning facilitators in Eritrea.

[ENDS]