“Compromise route” closed by UN

The United Nations has had to close a newly opened air route between Ethiopia and Eritrea in the face of continued disagreement over the international boundary. A statement, issued by UNMEE, said it had attempted to “reach agreement on a compromise route, flown two days ago.”

The compromise flight was diverted from the direct route, required by Eritrea, in order to pick up a route, required by Ethiopia. UNMEE had declared the flight path open after flighting the “compromise route”, but has had to return to the drawing board to get a proper agreement between the two countries.

The United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) said on 17 January it regretted “that it is at present unable to make further flights on a high-altitude air access route between Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and Asmara, Eritrea directly crossing the international boundary between the two countries.”

It said the route had been opened this week when the Eritrean authorities had been willing to authorise UNMEE flights by the direct route between the two capitals used by commercial flights before hostilities began in 1998. Ethiopia, from its part, had been willing to authorise UNMEE flights by a route requiring a diversion to avoid over-flying certain military positions. But the Eritrean authorities had decided, since UNMEE flew a “compromise route” on 15 January, that they would not allow UNMEE any further use of this route.
The route flown by UNMEE “diverted from the direct route in Eritrean airspace, over the area to become the Temporary Security Zone (TSZ)... in order to pick up the route required by Ethiopia at the southern boundary of the presumed TSZ”, the statement said. The Ethiopian authorities “remain unwilling to allow use of the direct route without diversion.” Establishing a TSZ on the disputed border has remained the main obstacle to implementing the peace agreement signed in Algiers on 12 December.

Until the issue has been resolved, UNMEE said in its statement it had had to resumed flights between the two capitals by over-flying neighbouring Djibouti.