Picard responded that “once this serious problem of return of the temporary security zone to its proper state, as required by the Algiers Agreements, and once UNMEE is allowed to fulfil its obligations by no longer being hindered in its operations throughout the zone, once those problems are dealt with, the other points that the Commission has raised are certainly not going to provide a problem” and “The problem really is Eritrea's violations of the Algiers Agreements are so fundamental and so material and so direct a threat to Ethiopia that this conduct simply has to change in fundamental ways before there will be any confidence that we can have productive discussions on demarcation.”