United Nations ? Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned that U.N. peacekeepers face an “alarming situation” in the tense Ethiopia-Eritrean border area following Eritrean restrictions on their movements and urged the Security Council to take action to prevent another war.

The council was scheduled to meet today to discuss the dispute between the Horn of Africa neighbors, which fought a 2 1/2-year border war that ended in a December 2000 peace agreement.

Greece’s U.N. Ambassador Adamantios Vassilakis said he plans to circulate a draft resolution calling for Eritrea to lift its ban on helicopter flights and vehicle movements and both countries to start discussions on their disputed border.

Eritrea informed the United Nations that it was banning helicopter flights by U.N. peacekeepers in its airspace in a buffer zone with Ethiopia starting Oct. 5. It also banned U.N. patrol vehicles from operating at night on its side of the 621-mile Temporary Security Zone dividing the two countries.

The zone was established after the peace agreement. The deal provided for an independent commission to rule on the position of the disputed border, but Ethiopia refused to accept the panel’s April 2002 decision, which awarded the town of Badme to Eritrea.