Top UN peacekeeping officials arrived in Addis Ababa on Sunday to try to convince Eritrea not to carry out a threat to expel some of UN's troops, Ethiopia's Foreign Ministry said.

UN Undersecretary-General for Peacekeeping Jean-Marie Guehenno and Major General Rnadhir Kumar Mehta of India, his top military adviser, made their first stop in Ethiopia where they immediately began talks with UN colleagues, the ministry said in a statement.

The two officials, who also met African Union experts, are expected to meet Ethiopian senior government officials, according to the statement.

Eritrea last week ordered UN peacekeepers from western countries to leave within 10 days.

Ethiopia has accused neighboring Eritrea of renewed military buildup along the border separating the two countries.

Ethiopia and Eritrea fought a two and a half years border war between May 1998 and December 2000. Nearly 3,400 UN peacekeepers are now deployed in a 25-kilometer-wide buffer corridor that hugs the length of the 1,000-kilometer border between the two states.

Source: Xinhua