UN Security Council welcomes new moves towards peace on Eritrean-Ethiopian border

Stressing the importance of demarcating a final acceptable border between two Horn of Africa countries, the United Nations Security Council today said it was encouraged by Ethiopia's announcement that it has a new peace plan and by Eritrea's continued acceptance of an independent Boundary Commission's decision on the frontier as binding.

"Members of the Security Council are encouraged by this movement towards a peaceful solution of the border dispute and now look forward to the beginning of the border demarcation process," the Council President for December and Ambassador of Algeria, Abdallah Baali, said in a statement to the news media.

The Council also urged the two countries to normalize relations and "to refrain from any action in the border area which could be viewed as provocative or destabilizing."

After a two-year border war, Eritrea and Ethiopia signed the June 2000 Algiers Agreement, a cessation of hostilities pact, and the Council established the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) a month later to verify the ceasefire.

The Security Council repeated its "support to the Secretary-General's Special Envoy, Lloyd Axworthy, and stressed UNMEE's important role in supporting the implementation of the final and binding decision of the Boundary Commission, established by the Algiers Agreement as the mechanism for a peaceful resolution of the boundary dispute," Ambassador Baali said.