By Irwin Arieff
Reuters
Tuesday, April 11, 2006; 6:51 PM UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. Security Council members have agreed to decide by mid-May on a plan for scaling back the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Eritrea and Ethiopia if the two former foes fail to resolve their differences in the next few weeks, council diplomats said on Tuesday. In a resolution set to be adopted by the 15-nation council on Thursday, the council would state its intention to review the mission's role and troop levels by May 15 "in the event it determines that the parties have not demonstrated full compliance" with its demands by the beginning of May. In the meantime, the mission's current mandate would be extended for just one month past its April 15 expiration, obliging the council to revisit the matter by May 15. The measure would also renew council appeals to both sides to end all restrictions on peacekeepers' movements and duties and would stress that lasting peace "cannot be achieved without the full demarcation of the border between the two parties." Eritrea won independence from Ethiopia, its Horn of Africa neighbor, in 1993 after a 30-year struggle but relations between the two remained tense and exploded into a border war in 1998 that cost some 70,000 lives. As part of a peace agreement reached in 2000, both sides agreed to accept as "final and binding" a new boundary set out for them by an independent commission. But Ethiopia later rejected the decision and insisted on further talks, prompting an angry Eritrea to impose restrictions on peacekeepers' movements. Among these was an Eritrean ban on U.N. helicopter flights over its territory, limiting peacekeepers' ability to monitor the 620-mile border and triggering troop movements --and growing tensions -- on both sides. Under the current mandate, a U.N. force of about 3,350 troops and observers maintains a buffer zone that has separated the two sides since their border war. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan set out six options for reconfiguring the force last January, ranging from full withdrawal to maintaining the mission in its present form. In a related effort to get the peace process back on track, the members of the original boundary commission have invited the two sides to meet with then April 28-29 in London. |
