Kofi Annan visiting at critical time, says UNMEE

The proposed visit to Eritrea by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan this weekend should have a positive impact on the stalled peace process with Ethiopia, UN officials said on Thursday. Gail Bindley Taylor Sainte, the spokeswoman for the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE), said the visit comes at a "critical time" for the mission. Annan is expected to fly into Eritrea on Saturday to try to overcome the current deadlock over the stalled three-year-old peace deal with Ethiopia. He will meet Eritrean President Isayas Afeworki before travelling to Ethiopia to meet Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. "You know that we are in stalemate at the moment, and the secretary-general is the head of the UN. Our hope is that when he comes here he would be able to meet with the leaders," she said. "It is a critical time for UNMEE because of the stalemate which exists within the peace process," she told journalists at a weekly press briefing. The impasse between the two neighbours over their disputed 1,000-km border has shown no signs of waning. The countries fought a bloody two-and-a-half-year war that claimed tens of thousands of lives over the border dispute. But under a peace agreement signed in Algiers in December 2000, their leaders pledged to resolve tensions through an independent boundary commission. In April 2002, the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC) issued its ruling, but this was rejected "illegal" by Ethiopia. Among the contentious issues was the symbolic border town of Badme, where initial skirmishes in May 1998 ignited the border war, and which the EEBC ruled as being in Eritrea. Both countries lay claim to Badme, which has a population of around 5,000, and was the scene of some of the heaviest fighting of the war. Ethiopia has called for dialogue as a means of resolving the dispute, but Eritrea insists that such dialogue cannot take place until the border has been physically demarcated. Earlier this year, Annan appointed a special envoy in the person of Lloyd Axworthy to help resolve the stalemate. After meeting Meles, Axworthy had expected to fly to Eritrea to meet Isayas, but the visit failed to materialise. Eritrea has since appointed its own envoy to meet Axworthy. Annan is also expected to address the forthcoming African Union summit, which opens in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, on Tuesday.