Sides agree to cooperate to avoid border incidents

Both Eritrea and Ethiopia have told the UN they will cooperate to avoid a recurrence of last weekend's deadly shooting incident in the border area. The assurance was given at a meeting of the Military Coordination Commission (MCC) in Nairobi on Wednesday. The MCC, which is held under the auspices of the UN, brings together top military officials of the two countries and is the only forum where direct talks take place. According to a report by the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE), generals from both sides discussed the shooting incident in which an Eritrean militiaman was allegedly shot dead by armed Ethiopians in the buffer zone between the countries. "Both parties agreed to cooperate with UNMEE to avoid the reoccurrence of such incidents," the report stated. The UNMEE Force Commander, Maj-Gen Robert Gordon, said he sought "further reassurance from both parties that they were fully committed to ensuring that nothing would be done to destabilise the existing military stability”. "Both parties gave the Force Commander their strongest assurances that this would be the case," UNMEE added. Tension has been rising between Ethiopia and Eritrea over their contested 1,000 km-long border. Demarcation has been postponed indefinitely as attempts are made to find a way out of the impasse. Ethiopia has refused to accept a ruling which places the village of Badme – flash point of the two-year border war – in Eritrea.