UNITED NATIONS - The Security Council voted Tuesday to reduce the peacekeeping mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea from 2,300 troops to 1,700, expressing disappointment in the stalled process to draw the border between the feuding Horn of Africa neighbors.
The 15-member council unanimously approved extending the mission in the tense 620-mile-long buffer zone for another six months.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for the extension last week, warning that another war could break out between the two countries if progress is not urgently made on the peace process.
Ban said resumed fighting would risk destabilizing the entire region, given the precarious security situation in neighboring Somalia, where African leaders are trying to muster an 8,000-member African Union peacekeeping force.
There were fears last year that Somalia could become a proxy battleground for the two countries. In December, Ethiopia sent troops to Somalia to back the interim government in its fight against an Islamic movement supported by Eritrea.
Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993 following a 30-year guerrilla war, but the border between the countries was never officially demarcated. Ties have remained strained since a 2000 truce. Ethiopia has also refused to accept an international boundary commission's ruling on the border dispute, which awarded the key town of Badme to Eritrea.
The council said it "regrets the lack of progress on demarcation" and demanded that "Ethiopia accept fully and without delay the final and binding decision" of the boundary commission. It said it would reconsider its decision about troop levels if there was any progress toward demarcation.
The boundary commission has said that if the countries do not agree on a border by November, it will set "an official internationally recognized border" on its own, using coordinates, said Michael Hoare, second secretary of Britain's U.N. mission.
The Security Council also demanded that Eritrea "immediately withdraw its troops and equipment" from the security zone.
In October, Eritrea moved 2,000 troops, tanks, artillery and air defense systems into the buffer zone in what the Security Council called a major violation of the cease-fire. Ethiopia deployed 21 artillery guns and several mortars in the zone around the same time, Ban said in a report last week.
In the last two months, hundreds of Eritrean soldiers have been seen moving in the buffer zone, and skirmishes have broken out between both sides.
In addition, the Security Council demanded that Eritrea lift all restrictions on the movement and operations of U.N. peacekeepers.
Amanuel Giorgio, first secretary of Eritrea's U.N. mission, defended his country's troop deployment to the buffer zone, saying Eritrea has the right to have a presence in territory "held hostage because Ethiopia refuses to comply with its commitments."
He said Eritrea had no objection to the Security Council's decision to trim the peacekeeping mission but wanted council members, particularly the United States, to be more aggressive about pressuring Ethiopia to comply with the border commission's decisions.
The Ethiopian mission did not immediately return calls seeking comment.
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Associated Press Writer Paul Burkhardt contributed to this report.
