Ethiopia’s Prime Minister (PM), Abiy Ahmed on Tuesday 5, March 2019 accompanied by Somalia’s President Mohamed Farmaajo arrived in Kenyan capital of Nairobi, where the former will be expected to lead efforts to restore diplomatic row between the two countries.
Last month, Kenya summoned its ambassador to Somalia for further guidance and direction in regard to the alleged decision by the Mogadishu government to auction oil and gas exploration blocks at the centre of a maritime territorial dispute in the Indian Ocean, a claim Mogadishu has so far disputed.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague is considering a claim on the two countries’ maritime boundaries brought by Somalia in 2014 after negotiations of over a 62,000 square miles triangle of disputed maritime territory in the Indian Ocean.
According to the office of the Ethiopian prime minister, mediation efforts were designed to ‘ease tensions that have been building’.
Abiy’s intervention is the latest in a raft of measures adopted by Nairobi in a bid to amicably resolve the dispute with Somalia.
Abiy left with Farmaajo, after holding bilateral talks in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa and were scheduled for a series of meetings with President Kenyatta Wednesday 6, March 2019.
