On Wednesday, the U.N. Security Council votedunanimously to end the peacekeeping mission, known as UNMEE, which hasmonitored a buffer zone along the disputed border between Ethiopia andEritrea for the past eight years.
On Thursday, Bereket Simon, anadvisor to Ethiopia's prime minister, said Ethiopia would continue tosearch for a solution to the dispute, but put the blame for themission's departure squarely on the government of Eritrea.
"Themission was not able to function because of the obstacles created bythe Eritrean government. The Eritrean government has trespassed theagreement and entered into the Temporary Security Zone. It has createdall sorts of obstacles. Freedom of movement was curtailed by theEritrean government so UNMEE was not in a position to do the rounds toobserve the situation, so it was impossible for them to continue," hesaid.
Earlier this year, the Eritrean government cut off fuelsupplies for U.N. peacekeepers, causing the bulk of the mission'spresence in the Eritrean side to leave the country. The U.N. had exploredthe possibility of a scaled-down force to replace UNMEE, but astatement from Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said that option had beenrejected by both sides.
Eritrean presidential spokesman YemaneGebremeskel on Tuesday reiterated his government's position that therehas already been a legal ruling on the border and that the UN mission,having failed to enforce the decision, serves no purpose.
"Whetherpeacekeepers are there or not, it has no impact. Nothing has changed.At the end of the day, UNMEE's presence was simply nominal to createthe conditions for the implementation of the agreement. But that hasnot taken place for the last eight years simply because the SecurityCouncil has failed to act on the decision of the commission. Andthat's because the Americans have been blocking implementation of thedecision," he said.
Following the 2000 Algiers Agreement thatended the two-year border war between the two countries, a boundarycommission gave much of the disputed territory, including the town ofBadme, to Eritrea. But Eritrea's increasingly antagonistic posture haslost the country much of its international sympathy.
Bothgovernments have minimized the possibility that the U.N.'s departurewill invite a return to conflict. But many observers are lessoptimistic, warning that that the removal of peacekeepers removes oneof the few remaining buffers between the thousands of troops amassed byeach side along the border.