The UN Security Council have urged Djibouti and Eritrea to resolve their border dispute peacefully after tensions flared following the withdrawal of Qatari peacekeepers from a buffer zone.
Djibouti accused Eritrea of moving its forces into the buffer zone last week, a day after Qatar, a mediator in the border dispute that turned violent in 2010, announced the troop pullout.
After hearing a UN report on Monday, the Security Council called “on the parties to resolve their border dispute peacefully in a manner consistent with international law,” said Bolivian Ambassador Sacha Llorenty, this month’s council president.
The council “would welcome the consideration of future confidence-building measures,” he told reporters after the closed-door meeting. Council members welcomed a plan by the African Union to send a fact-finding mission to the disputed border region, Llorenty added.
The meeting on the border tensions was called by Ethiopia, which fought a war with Eritrea in the late 1990s.
The Qatari withdrawal comes as the Persian Gulf emirate is locked in a bitter dispute with Saudi Arabia and its allies over alleged ties to extremists, a charge it denies.
Both Djibouti and Eritrea have good relations with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and have taken their side in the Persian Gulf row.