US denies arms embargo deal

A top US official who helped broker the Ethiopian-Eritrean peace deal has denied that promises to lift a UN arms embargo had been used as an incentive. US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Susan Rice told Reuters news agency on Monday that the issue had not been raised in the peace negotiations.

She was responding to criticism from western diplomats that she and another US mediator, Anthony Lake, had promised Ethiopia that the US would use its influence to ensure that the UN embargo, due to expire in May, would be lifted after a peace deal was signed.

The US has put forward a draft resolution proposing that the UN-imposed sanctions be lifted immediately and not in May, which other countries have opposed. Lifting the embargo sooner would allow other countries to offer bilateral demining assistance to the two countries, which is forbidden under the arms embargo, a senior US official told Reuters.

But several nations that have peacekeepers as part of the 4,200-member UN Mission for Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE), including Canada and the Netherlands, are against lifting the embargo because Ethiopia and Eritrea continue to disagree over the implementation of the peace agreement, the report said.