Japan's U.N. rep, raises concerns for Ethiopia-Eritrea conflict
Nov 12, 2005, 9:32 GMT
New York - Kenzo Oshima, the Japanese ambassador to the United Nations, Friday warned the U.N. Security Council that the disintegration of the conflict in Ethiopia and Eritrea provoked serious concerns.
Oshima returned after the council sent him to visit the U.N. peacekeeping operations on the border between the two rival East African countries.
Oshima warned of the huge 'danger of a worsening' of the conflict, but stopped short of anticipating that all out war would break out, according to Andrej Denisov, the current Security Council president.
Oshima plans to submit a written report to the council.
Ethiopia has for three years refused to accept the decision of an independent border commission to settle the conflict, although it had made a commitment to acccept the outcome.
Eretria became independent from Ethiopia in the early 1990s after decades of rebellion, and there was peace between the two countries for a number of years after that.
But in 1998, a bloody war broke out over the border dispute that took 70,000 lives.
Oshima held talks with both Ethiopia and Eritrea aimed at defusing escalating tension. U.N. peacekeepers patrol a 1,000-kilometre Temporary Security Zone that was set up at the end of the two-and- half-year border war in 2000.
Eritrea has recently banned U.N. helicopters from flying over its territory and restricted night travel by UNMEE vehicles.
Oshima, the chairman of the U.N. Security Council's Working Group on Peacekeeping Operations, said that Eritrean restrictions had reduced UNMEE's operational capabilities by about 40 per cent.
Oshima said he had received assurances that Ethiopia would not be 'the first to fire' in the event of a border conflict with Eritrea.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan last week called for both Eritrea and Ethiopia 'to exercise maximum restraint in the prevailing tense situation in the border area', he also urged Eritrea to lift restrictions on UNMEE 'as a matter of urgency'.
© dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur
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