U.N. extends Ethiopia-Eritrea force mandate 6 months

The Security Council renewed the mandate of the struggling U.N. peace force on the Eritrea-Ethiopia border for six months on Wednesday despite a request from Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for just one month.Ban had proposed only a brief extension because he said a fuel cut-off by Eritrea had crippled the force's activities and troops might have to be withdrawn within weeks. But council diplomats said that would amount to giving in to blackmail.

The 1,700-strong United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea, or UNMEE, went to the border in 2000 at the end of a two-year war between the two impoverished countries in the Horn of Africa, which killed 70,000 people.

An independent commission charged with marking the border after the war awarded the flashpoint town of Badme to Eritrea in 2002, but Ethiopia did not implement the decision. In November, the commission demarcated the line by map coordinates in a ruling that Eritrea accepted but Ethiopia rejected.

With UNMEE unable to enforce the commission's decisions, its relations with Asmara have become steadily colder. Earlier this month Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki told the Security Council the force's continued presence on the border would be tantamount to occupation.

In a report to the council last week, Ban said fuel restrictions begun by Eritrea in 2006 and culminating in a total shut-off on December 1 "have severely hampered the mission capacity to effectively implement its mandate."

A resolution passed on Wednesday by the Security Council demanded "that the government of Eritrea resumes immediately fuel shipments to UNMEE or allows UNMEE to import fuel without restrictions." It also prolonged the mandate for six months.

"I think there was a feeling that the council wasn't going to be blackmailed by Eritrea," said a diplomat who asked not to be identified. "We believe (UNMEE) needs to be on the ground as one factor, if not the main factor, preventing the parties from returning to conflict."

The fuel cut-off has forced UNMEE troops on the Eritrean side of the border to drastically reduce patrols and demining activities, according to Ban.

The two countries insist they will not restart their war, but both have moved tens of thousands of troops to the 620-mile (1,000-km) border.

The Security Council called on both sides to reduce their troop levels, settle the border issue and normalize relations.

A letter to the council on Tuesday from Eritrean charge d'affaires Tesfa Alem Seyoum did not mention the fuel cut-off but said the ruling by the Hague-based boundary commission had ended the border issue.

"The issue that requires the council's urgent attention is Ethiopia's continued occupation of sovereign Eritrean territory," it said.

(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)