By The Star Staff Writer
MOGADISHU – Somalia’s President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed Farmajo and Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed travelled together to the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, where Abiy, who is the chairman of the regional bloc of IGAD, plans to resolve the diplomatic row between Somalia and Kenya over their maritime boundary.
Kenya on Feb. 16 expelled Somalia’s Ambassador to Nairobi and recalled its envoy over unsubstantiated claims that the Horn of Africa nation auctioned Kenyan offshore blocks in London.
“President @M_Farmajo and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed arrived in Nairobi tonight,” said President Farmajo’s office in a Twitter message. “They will hold tripartite talks with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta.”
Somalis immediately reacted to the Nairobi talks with shock and skepticism, with a former Ambassador blasting President Farmajo’s decision to fly with Abiy to Nairobi on the same Ethiopian plane.
“The right diplomatic procedure was #Abiy (and) #Kenyatta to travel to Mogadishu,” said Idd Bedel Mohamed, a former Ambassador at Somalia’s Mission to the United Nations in New York, referring to the Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta. “…Traveling to the country that started the problem diplomatically means Somalia was at fault and Kenya is being calmed down.”
Others saw the trip to Nairobi as a “trap” Abiy laid for President Farmajo who until recently resisted Kenya’s overtures for an out-of-court settlement for the maritime dispute between Somalia and Kenya that is being adjudicated at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
“If President Farmajo succumbs to Kenya’s bullying and withdraws the ongoing case at the ICJ, he is committing a treason, as that expressly violates Article 1 of the constitution, which states “the sovereignty and unity of the Federal Republic of Somalia is inviolable,” said Hamza Abdikadi Sadik, a former legal adviser to Somalia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Sadik said the Somali government shouldn’t open any negotiations with Kenya on any inch of its territory.
“Let Kenya wait for the ICJ’s verdict,”Sadik said.
Mukhtar Ainashe, a former adviser to former President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, warned of a “brutal military force” and “violence” if President Farmajo withdraws the Somali case from the ICJ. “He will be deposed & arrested on national treason charges,” he said. “He should apply political asylum in Kenya!”
But Abdinur Mohamed Ahmed, director of communications at the office of President Farmajo, sought to assuage Somali concerns, saying Somalia’s lands are not open for discussions.
“No negotiation and talk on the case at the International Court of Justice on (the delineation of) maritime (boundaries),” said Ahmed in a message on his Facebook page. “We will wait for the court’s decision. We will not negotiate an inch of our land.”
Abiy, who hosted President Kenyatta in Addis Ababa over the weekend, held “long consultations” with both President Farmajo and his Kenyan counterpart “to facilitate the first face to face discussion,” said Abiy’s office.
“It’s expected that the mediated meeting between the two countries will ease tensions that have been building” up, said Abiy’s office on its Facebook page.
On Feb. 16, Kenya expelled Somalia’s Ambassador to Kenya and recalled its Ambassador to Mogadishu, saying Somalia sold Kenyan offshore blocks in a recent conference in London. Nairobi produced no hard evidence to support its claim, which many analysts saw as an unnecessary overreaction aimed at squeezing concessions from Somalia’s weak government.
Both Somalia and the Norwegian company, Spectrum Geo Ltd., which shot the seismic data presented at the London conference, said no Kenyan offshore blocks were put up for auction during the licensing round. Spectrum carried out two seismic surveys that covered 40,000 kilometers of Somali waters.
The Kenyan government on Feb. 21 dramatically escalated its maritime row with Somalia demanding an apology and withdrawal of Somali maps showing offshore blocks offered at the London conference.
The Somali government refused to offer any apology and instead accused Kenya of basing its statement “on a misunderstanding of the facts,” according a Feb. 25 letter from Somalia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The Somali letter, which was a response to Kenya’s complaints, urged the Kenyan government to wait for the ICJ decision, which “will be decided in due course consistent with international law.”
“The Government of Somalia wishes to assure the Government of Kenya that it will respect and comply with the ICJ’s judgment, and trusts that the Government of Kenya will do the same,” said Somalia’s response, urging both sides to refrain from “taking action that may aggravate the dispute.”
Mogadishu also rejected Kenya’s “unfortunate characterization” of Somalia’s earlier statement as “deliberately misleading.”
The two countries have been locked in a maritime dispute since 2009, with Somalia saying its maritime boundary with Kenya lies perpendicular to the coast and Kenya claiming the line of latitude protrudes from its boundary with Somalia.
In 2014, Somalia took its case to the International Court of Justice, requesting the U.N.’s principal judicial organ “determine, on the basis of international law, the complete course of the single maritime boundary dividing all the maritime areas appertaining to Somalia and to Kenya in the Indian Ocean, including the continental shelf beyond 200 [nautical miles]”.
Somalia also asked the court to “determine the precise geographical co-ordinates of the single maritime boundary in the Indian Ocean.”
Kenya suffered a major setback in 2017 after the ICJ agreed to hear the Somali case, rejecting Nairobi’s preliminary objections to its authority to rule on the maritime boundary dispute between the two countries. Fearing that it could lose the case, Kenya has been pushing for direct negotiations, which Somalia resisted, especially after numerous talks that preceded Mogadishu’s decision to sue Kenya yielded no results.
Many Somalis suspect that Kenya’s diplomatic escalation is just a stratagem aimed at shanghaiing Somalia into an out-of-court settlement. Somalis believe that Kenya has taken advantage of their nation’s weakness to lay claim to their waters, whose ownership were not in dispute when Somalia had a strong, functioning government.
Before their departure for Nairobi, Kenya, President Farmajo and Prime Minister Abiy held talks in Addis Ababa that focused on four key issues: Strengthening the region’s peace and security, strengthening the relationship between Somalia and Kenya, continuation of the agreement that allowed Ethiopia last year to invest in four Somali ports and ensuring that Somalia’s northern region joins the ongoing regional peace initiatives.