Border ruling due on 13 April

The international ruling on border delimitation between Ethiopia and Eritrea is to be announced on Saturday 13 April.

According to a statement sent to both sides by the international Boundary Commission at The Hague, the announcement is set for 10.30 am [local time] and should not take longer than one hour. The decision was originally due to be announced at the end of February, and was then postponed until the end of March for "technical reasons".

Meanwhile, members of the UN Security Council urged Ethiopia and Eritrea to desist from any unilateral action, noting that the upcoming border ruling was not the end of the peace process.

The Council met on Wednesday to discuss the report of the recent Security Council mission to the two countries. According to a UN account of the meeting, Ambassador Ole Peter Kolby of Norway, who led the high-level delegation, said the most important issue now was to consider the steps that still needed to be taken. The Eritrean and Ethiopian leaders had described the mission as constructive and timely, he pointed out, and the Council "should build further on that foundation".

The Netherlands representative Dirk Jan van den Berg, who is chairman of the Group of Friends of Eritrea and Ethiopia, said this group would "strive to keep the dialogue going with the authorities of both countries". This was aimed at bringing about the ultimate goal - full and normalised relations between the two nations, he said.

Alistair Harrison of the United Kingdom stressed that while the border ruling was important for peace and stability, "it is not the end of the peace process". "Current negotiations on the ground will have to remain," he said.

Speakers noted the priority need for demining so that the demarcation process could be carried out. Richard Williamson of the US also warned there was a risk "that misunderstandings on either side could spiral into a series of miscalculations". He urged the two parties to move forward now, without waiting for the Boundary Commission's decision. "They should also identify a third party upon whose good offices they could call when they cannot agree on implementation of a particular issue," he stated. He said the US was disappointed that neither side had any arrangements to carry out demining.

Speaking on behalf of the European Union, Spain's representative Inocencio Arias also stressed the importance of demining. "The European Union attaches the utmost importance to the continuation of arrangements for the separation of forces, as achieved by the establishment of the Temporary Security Zone," he added.

In his address to the meeting, Fesseha Tessema of Ethiopia said the peace process was at a "critical stage". "The decision of the Boundary Commission ought to be a judicial one, void of any political pressures," he said. Stressing that his government was committed to "the full implementation" of the decision, he expressed concern that the buffer area, known as the Temporary Security Zone (TSZ), "was not fully demilitarised and continued to be infiltrated".

For his part, the Eritrean representative Tesfa Alem Seyoum said the TSZ could not be established "due to Ethiopia's refusal to redeploy its troops". He also accused Ethiopia of failing to provide the UN with detailed landmine information. "This has added significance today due to the fact that the task of expeditious demarcation - and ultimate peace between the two countries - depends on rapid completion of mine clearance," he said.