Obstacles still impede the Eritrean- Ethiopian agreement

A report by the UN secretary general has unveiled that there are still obstacles which are impeding the implementation of the peace process between Eritrea and Ethiopia, noting that Addis Ababa's reservations relate to the volume of the Eritrean militias inside the isolated security zone and other reservations on the fact that Ethiopia has not completed the wihdrawal of its forces from the south of the region.

In a report he debated before the UN Security Council during this week and circulated in Asmara, the UN chief Kofi Annan said that he had sent messages on the first of June to the President of Eritrea Asyas Afourki and the Ethiopian prime minister Meles Zenawi in which he urged them to maintain cooperation with the border demarcation commission. Annan added that he talked to Afourki about the volume of the Eritrean militias inside the isolated area, noting that the agreement signed between the two countries to halt the acts of hostilities did not define the volume of the militias.

Addis Ababa doubts that these militias to be regular forces, whereas the agreement states that Eritrean forces are to exist to the north of the isolated area and it is of 25 km depth inside the border.