No danger of Ethiopia-Eritrea war-Meles

28 Jan 2007 12:24:56 GMT
By Barry Moody

ADDIS ABABA, Jan 28 (Reuters) - Ethiopia and Eritrea are not close to war, despite a U.N. report saying tensions could erupt into a new conflict in the Horn of Africa, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said in a report last week that stalemate over a border dispute and recent worsening of the situation were a major threat that could trigger war.

Asked about the report in a Reuters interview late on Saturday, Meles said: "There is always the risk of war but I doubt we are on the brink of war."

He accused the Asmara government of spurning dialogue over the dispute but "military options are not attractive," so the stalemate was likely to continue.

"We have no intention of engaging the Eritreans in any military action. The Eritreans, I believe, (also) know better," he said.

Before the recent Somalia war in which Ethiopian military power helped the transitional government there to oust Islamists, many analysts had suggested Eritrea might exploit the conflict to try to make gains on the border, unleashing a regional conflict. Meles said: "Nothing happened along the border. Nothing new happened. The usual infiltrations here, skirmishes there."

But he repeated accusations Eritrea had moved troops into a border buffer zone before the Somalia war, saying there were "tens of thousands" of Eritrean troops there.

"There is no temporary security zone any more. It has been occupied by the Eritrean army," Meles said.

Eritrea has said it has moved people into the border area for agricultural work like harvesting but has given no numbers.

Ban issued his warning ahead of a Security Council vote at the end of January expected to cut the U.N. peacekeeping mission on the border from 2,300 troops to 1,700.

The U.N. troops were first sent to the area in 2000 to enforce a ceasefire ending a 1998-2000 border conflict that killed 70,000 people in trench warfare likened to the First World War. Ban also accused Eritrea of sending troops into the buffer zone.