ERITREA-ETHIOPIA CLOSE TO WAR

There is growing concern Eritrea and Ethiopia are on the verge of war after reports of troop movements along the tense border between the two Horn of Africa neighbors.





United Nations chief Kofi Annan said in a statement that he was "extremely concerned about reports from the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) concerning movements of military personnel on both sides of the temporary security zone as well as irregular activities inside the zone."

He added that the troop movements involved small and large military and paramilitary formations and movement of armor as well as air defense weapons.

The secretary general called on arch-rival neighbors Ethiopia and Eritrea to show restraint and put "an immediate halt to any actions that may be misinterpreted by the other side or jeopardize the security arrangements which they agreed to" in a 2000 agreement.

Mr Annan urged the UN Security Council and individual member states to "take decisive steps to defuse the escalating tension" between the two countries and offered UN help.

"The information that we have is that there seems to have been (military) movements in the adjacent areas north of the security zone and on the Ethiopian side south of the security zone," said Jean-Marie Guehenno, head of UN peacekeeping operations.

Russia's UN envoy Andrei Denisov, the incoming president of the Security Council for this month, said he shared Mr Annan's concerns.

"The news coming from the ground is pessimistic, unfortunately," he added.

The UN Security Council last week started discussing a draft resolution that calls on the two neighbours to implement a decision by an international commission on their border dispute.

The draft, circulated among the council's 15 members, calls on both parties to implement completely and without delay the decision of the Eritrea-Ethiopia boundary commission and to create the necessary conditions for demarcation to proceed quickly.