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U.N. Chief Urges Eritrea, Ethiopia to Respect Peace Agreement
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan on Monday urged Eritrea and Ethiopia to honor the peace agreement they have just signed and U.N. member states to send peacekeepers to the region.
Speaking to reporters after meeting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Annan said he hopes Eritrea and Ethiopia would respect the agreement and stop their fighting.
Annan came to Egypt from Iran, the first leg of his ongoing Mideast tour, on Sunday. He left for Lebanon soon after meeting with Mubarak. He will also travel to Jordan, Syria, Israel and the Palestinian self-rule areas.
Eritrea and Ethiopia signed the peace deal on Sunday in Algiers, Algeria, pledging to halt two years of border war that has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than a million others, and caused heavy losses of properties on both sides.
Aside from a commitment to stop armed attacks, one of the key points of the agreement, brokered by the Organization of African Unity, is the deployment of a U.N. peacekeeping force in a strip of land running parallel to the border inside Eritrea.
Annan called on the U.N. member states to provide troops as quickly as possible.
Following troop deployment, the U.N. will demarcate the border for the two parties as asked in the peace agreement, and Addis Ababa and Asmara have promised to respect the line that the U.N. will draw, he said.
Ethiopia and Eritrea have been engaged in a border dispute since May 6, l998 when the Eritrean troops invaded and seized some Ethiopian territories. Fighting renewed in May 2000 along their 1,000-kilometer border, with Ethiopian troops marching into Eritrea, beyond disputed border regions.
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