Special representative seeks solution for flights

The Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General to the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE), Legwaila Joseph Legwaila, is in Addis Ababa for a series of meetings with Ethiopian officials and senior UNMEE staff. UNMEE spokesman Chris de Bono said in Asmara on 29 June that problems remained over UNMEE’s access to a direct flying route between Addis Ababa and Asmara. He said the Ethiopian government had given permission to UNMEE to fly directly with a “two-minute, 11-km deviation so we do not overfly a certain military area on the Ethiopian side of the southern border of the Temporary Security Zone”. However, the Eritrean government had given permission for direct flights on condition that the deviation was not made. Legwaila had “recently put some alternate proposals approved by the International Civil Aviation Organisation to both parties”. Eritrea had rejected the new proposal. Legwaila had last week also met with the Eritrean Patriarch and other Eritrean religious leaders, and called on them to persevere with their work towards bringing about reconciliation. He said the religious leaders had “expressed some frustration with problems” that had thwarted their efforts. Last month Ethiopia refused to grant visas at the last minute for a planned joint peace mission to the disputed border by Ethiopian and Eritrean religious leaders, diplomatic sources said.