The foreign ministry in Asmara said in a statement distributed at UN headquarters in New York that Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had chosen to dwell on 'peripheral matters' rather than trying to settle the dispute over the border.

Eritrea said Ethiopia continued to violate the joint border.

Earlier Friday, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon charged that the Eritrean government had endangered the lives and operations of UN peacekeepers by cutting off fuel supplies necessary for their work.

Ban said the Eritrean government had prevented the relocation of thousands of UN personnel to Ethiopia, a move which he ordered earlier this week, and seized UN peacekeepers' equipment.

The Ethiopian government said Ban's charges were 'not tenable or acceptable.'

'The oft-repeated insinuation of looming 'danger to the lives of UNMEE troops' in Eritrea is unfounded and perhaps designed to cover up the UN's failure to address the fundamental problem cited (border),' the statement said.

The UN Security Council held an unscheduled meeting to hear an explanation from Jean-Marie Guehenno, the chief of UN peacekeeping operations, who said after the meeting that he had appealed for protection of the UN troops in Eritrea.

'What's at stake now is the welfare of the troops,' Guehenno said. 'These troops need protection and their welfare must be secured.'

He said it would be up to the council to act to protect the peacekeepers it sent to the Horn of Africa.

After Ban's orders for the UN troops to move to Ethiopia earlier this week, only six vehicles of the advance units were allowed to cross the border while the rest were stopped by the Eritrean Defence Forces.

Ban said that on Thursday, UN personnel were threatened and their equipment seized. The Eritrean commercial company that provided food rations to the UN has stopped its contractual obligations.

'The mission has only a few days of emergency ration left,' Ban said.

He called on the Eritrean government to 'cease their obstruction of the relocation. The UN has reiterated that this relocation is temporary and that Eritrea must immediately meet its international obligations to cooperate with the mission.'

UNMEE has been monitoring a ceasefire between the two Horn of African nations, which fought a brief war over a portion of the border in the summer of 2000.

Ban said last week Eritrea cut off diesel supplies, which endangered the safety and security of the mission's personnel. Eritrea also blocked the UN from purshasing fuel.

The dispute over fuel supplies was the latest in the worsening relationship between Eritrea and the UN. Last year, Eritrea grounded all flights by the peacekeepers to monitor the border area.

UNMEE has 1,460 military and civilian personnel based in Asmara and along the dispute border.

Eritrea said it was opposed to the so-called relocation of UNMEE because it would violate the 2000 ceasefire agreement that ended the brief border war in that year.

It called on the UN Security Council to 'redress the situation and ensure the removal of Ethiopian occupation of Eritrean territories in breach of the Algiers peace agreement and UN Charter.'

The UN says that peacekeepers would have 60 days of food supplies in Asmara if they were to be relocated there. At relocation sites at Barentu, Senafe and Assab, food supplies would last 11 to 14 days.

Fuel supplies amounted to 37,00 liters in Asmara, 46,000 liters in Berentu and 24,000 liters to 6,000 liters in Senafe and Assab, which the UN said were 'enough to move,' but it was not more specific.

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