Hitch over Eritrea-Ethiopia buffer zone

Eritrea is reported to have raised objections to the definition of the buffer zone being established under United Nations supervision to separate its forces from those of Ethiopia.

Ethiopia said it had completed its redeployment from the buffer zone by the deadline yesterday.

However, sources close to the Eritrean government say that Eritrea will not now begin deploying its forces until its objections to the delineation of the zone had been resolved. The sources say that the way the UN has translated the political map of the zone, to which both sides had agreed, into an operational map showing redeployment positions and territorial boundaries, unfairly favours Ethiopia, giving it some land it had never controlled before.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service