US calls off Eritrea mediation mission

January 19, 2006WASHINGTON -- A US mission to resolve a territorial dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea will be shortened because Eritrean authorities refused to accept the envoy, the State Department said on Wednesday. "They are not facilitating her travel to Eritrea so she is not going to the boundary region" on the Eritrean side, said department spokeswoman Julie Reside. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer said last week that she would travel to Addis Ababa and Asmara as well as the conflict area on both sides of the border. The mission has been approved by the UN Security Council, but the Eritrean foreign minister said that he doubted its legality and pertinence. However, according to a State Department official who wished to remain unidentified, Frazer still plans to visit the border region. "She is going to see it, from the Ethiopian side," the official said. "She wanted to see both sides but the Eritreans are not going to facilitate it." "The way we look at it, it is their loss," the official added. Under agreements signed in 2000 that ended 12 years of war between the two countries, Ethiopia and Eritrea were to accept a border demarcated by an international commission. But the border established in 2002 has never been accepted by Ethiopia, and relations between the two countries remain tense.