Bilateral relations still "terribly polarised"

The special representative of the secretary-general for the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) said last week that Ethiopia and Eritrea remained "terribly polarised", and cited this as the major obstacle to normalising relations between them. "There is still a lot of bitterness between them," Legwaila Joseph Legwaila told journalists in New York after addressing the UN Security Council on 13 September. Legwaila said UNMEE's main achievement had been the separation of the forces and the creation of the temporary security zone, but admitted that "the mission has not achieved every objective that we wanted to achieve".

Legwaila said the main obstacle to further progress stemmed from the difficulties that arose from negotiating the demarcation of their common border. "Our work is tied to the work of the Boundary Commission [and we] can only complete our mission if the Boundary Commission completes its work, announces the decision, and the parties accept it." Legwaila said the only forum where Ethiopian and Eritrean representatives were willing to sit down together was the Military Coordination Commission. "We are worried that the longer they take to begin the process of normalising their relations the longer and harder it will be for them to do it after we have left. I keep telling them that every successful peacekeeping operation is successful because of the cooperation of the parties."