The UN Security Council insisted on Thursday that Eritrea fully cooperate in the temporary relocation of UN peacekeepers based in the country who had been monitoring the tense border with Ethiopia.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon ordered the temporary redeployment on Feb. 11 after Eritrea restricted fuel supplies to the UN force and its food supplies were briefly halted. The moves exacerbated tensions between the UN and Eritrea over monitoring the border.
Eritrean Ambassador to the UN Araya Desta insisted on Thursday that his government was "cooperating fully" with the UN force -- and told reporters "we are cooperating now in the withdrawal of the troops."
He blamed "miscommunication, misunderstanding, confusion on the side of Eritrea" for the problems with food, fuel and the withdrawal.
The fuel shortage was "very much dramatized," he said, blaming a technical problem and insisting the UN force still had a three-month supply.
A 1,700-strong UN force has been monitoring a 24km wide, 1,000km-long buffer zone between the countries under a December 2000 peace agreement that ended a two-and-a-half year border war.
Eritrea and Ethiopia have been feuding over their border since Eritrea gained independence from the Addis Ababa government in 1993 after a 30-year guerrilla war.
Tensions between the two countries remain high because of Ethiopia's refusal to accept an international boundary commission's ruling in 2002 on the border demarcation which awarded the key town of Badme to Eritrea.
In apparent frustration at Ethiopia's refusal to implement the ruling and the lack of UN action to press Ethiopia to comply, Eritrea banned UN helicopter flights in its airspace in October 2005. Two months later, it banned UN night patrols and kicked out Western peacekeepers. Earlier this year it started restricting fuel supplies.
When Desta was asked whether Eritrea's cooperation extended to restoring UN helicopter flights and operations in the buffer zone, he accused some UN peacekeepers based in Eritrea of "misbehaving" by keeping pornography, trafficking in women and getting involved in the country's national security.
While conceding that there have been isolated incidents of misbehavior among peacekeepers in both Eritrea and Ethiopia, UN officials expressed skepticism that this was Eritrea's real motivation. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity.
The UN Security Council said after a closed-door briefing that members "insist on full cooperation of Eritrea in the context of the temporary relocation of personnel and equipment."
The council said it is also waiting for a report from the secretary-general "providing options and recommendations for the future UN presence in the area."
Russian Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin, the current council president, told reporters that the UN force in Eritrea "had to be relocated by the secretary-general temporarily because conditions were created which made it impossible for the mission to stay there."
UN troops are still posted on the Ethiopian side.
During council discussions, Churkin said, some members mentioned that the UN force "has played and should continue to play a very stabilizing role" and warned that a permanent pullout "could have some negative consequences."
Desta said he did not envision any renewed conflict because the border has been demarcated and Eritrea is satisfied.
"We have accepted it and we want peace with Ethiopia, but first and foremost we want Ethiopia to withdraw from our sovereign territories," he said.
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