 |
Ethiopia, Eritrea Agree to Establishing UN Buffer Zone
Ethiopia and Eritrea on Tuesday agreed to the establishment of a United-Nations- monitored temporary security zone between the two countries, and set a timetable for the purpose, a UN spokesman said.
The agreement was reached in Nairobi, Kenya at a meeting under the chairmanship of the Force Commander of the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE), spokesman Fred Eckhard said.
Both parties expressed their general acceptance of the UN proposal for the southern boundary of the 25-kilometer-deep buffer zone. The parties also set key dates for the zone's establishment.
Ethiopia is set to redeploy its forces to the southern boundary from February 12-16, and Eritrea's time for its rearrangement of forces to the northern boundary is from February 17 to March 3.
Eritrea had been an Ethiopian province until 1993 when it became independent with Ethiopian support.
Fighting first broke out along the 1,000-kilometer border in 1998 and flared up again in May 2000. The two countries singed a cessation of hostilities agreement in Algeria in June to halt a conflict claiming tens of thousands of lives and uprooting more than a million people.
The UNMEE, set up in July 2000 and mandated to assist in the observance of security arrangements between the two Horn of Africa neighbors, will monitor and verify the zone's establishment.
In This Section
|