23 April 2001
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia — Ethiopia has refuted the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea's (UNMEE) allegations that Addis Ababa did not communicate its full redeployment plans along its border with Eritrea.
The Ethiopian Peacekeeping Co-ordination Bureau with UNMEE said Ethiopia had fully complied with the Algiers accords regarding the redeployment of its troops, the official Ethiopian news agency reported Sunday.
"The recent unfounded allegation of UNMEE over the redeployment of Ethiopian troops came as a surprise to us," the agency said, quoting a bureau statement.
On 18 April UNMEE issued a statement expressing "regrets" that Ethiopia did not communicate to UNMEE "the nature of its redeployment plans in the Irob area," situated 30 km south-east of the Ethiopian border town of Zalambessa.
Eritrea had asserted that the area did not belong to Ethiopia prior to the outbreak of the border conflict between the two sides.
The UNMEE statement was issued in connection of the setting up of a temporary security zone (TSZ), a 25-km-wide buffer zone separating the two forces, following Eritrea's announcement two days earlier that it had repositioned its forces out of the proposed TSZ.
"UNMEE has, however, concluded that it has no option than to adjust the southern boundary of the TSZ accordingly," the bureau added.
The UNMEE said it expected "to reach agreement on the clarification of the redeployment lines provided by Ethiopia and to gain a more accurate understanding of the differences between the parties on the ground in specific localities."
"Ethiopia, from the very outset and earlier on, has advised UNMEE and its forces commander that the issue related with Irob problems have nothing to do with Ethiopia," the bureau said.
The statement added that a group of UNMEE and Ethiopian inspectors sent to Irob area "at Ethiopia's request" had established that Ethiopian forces were back on their pre-border conflict position of 6 March 1998, which was "endorsed and accepted by the Ethiopian authorities as well as by UNMEE senior commanders."
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