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Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said on Thursday the UN was exaggerating emergency situations in Somalia and described the world body's role in the troubled Horn of Africa state as unproductive.
In an interview with the BBC a year after Ethiopia sent troops in to Somalia, Meles said the UN was taking for granted unfounded reports of some agencies operationg in Somalia to base its overstated reports on humanitarian siuation there.
Meles said the UN's stance was counter-productive and he called on the world body to play a more "positive role" in Somalia.
The UN says fighting between insurgents and Ethiopian-backed government forces in the capital, Mogadishu, has created Africa's worst humanitarian crisis.
"At the moment, some UN agencies appear to be doing damage in respect of parroting totally unfounded reports by some agencies without in any way trying to verify the facts," Meles told the BBC.
Meles said he understood the delicate situation there, but the UN shouldn't make a mistake about facts on the ground.
"The situation there - as hard as it is - it could do with less hype and exaggeration," Meles said.
Ethiopian troops intervened in Somalia a year ago, when they helped government forces oust Islamists from much of southern Somalia.
Meles denied reports that his troops were involved in the indiscriminate shooting of civilians.
"There has not been any indiscriminate firing on our side because it would be completely suicidal for us to engage in such an activity," Meles said.
"Our intention is to give space to recreate the Somali state - you do not create the Somali state by firing indiscriminately into civilian areas and civilian targets "Nevertheless it is quite true that when you fight in built-up areas there are bound to be civilian causalities and these are extremely regrettable." Meles also denied his government was wrong on the strength of the Islamists who still mange to mount insurgent attacks on Somali government troops and their Ethiopian allies.
"Our initial plans were designed to curtail the influence of the jihadists there and to try to prevent them from taking the whole of Somalia under their control. We did that in a number of weeks." Last week, Ethiopia denied claims that it had shelled the main market in the capital, Mogadishu, leading to at least 17 deaths.
Meles admitted Ethiopia's withdrawal from Somalia was taking "a lot longer" than planned because of delays in the deployment of African Union peacekeepers.
So far just 1,600 Ugandan peacekeepers have arrived, out of a planned force of 8,000.
"I understand why the African Union does not have the resources to fulfil its promise.
"But I hope that those who have the resources will support the African Union so they can deploy the peacekeeping troops," he said.
Even with half the expected number, the force would "go a long way in making the appropriate environment for us to withdraw," Meles told BBC's East Africa correspondent Karen Allen.
Meanwhile, the U.N. Security Council called on Wednesday for more funds for a hard-pressed AU peacekeeping force in Somalia and asked the U.N. secretary-general to keep planning for a U.N. force there.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said last month Somalia was too dangerous even to send an assessment team to prepare for a U.N. peacekeeping force.
The Security Council issued a statement after talks on Somalia on Wednesday reiterating its backing for AMISOM.
