Kenya has ordered Somali envoy out of the country and recalled its ambassador in Mogadishu over alleged auctioning of oil and gas blocks in Kenya’s maritime territorial area that borders Somalia.
According to Foreign Affairs PS Macharia Kamau, the auction took place in London, United Kingdom, last week.
Lieutenant-General (Rtd) Lucas Tumbo was summoned back to Nairobi for urgent consultations.
“This unparalleled affront and illegal grab at the resources of Kenya will not go unanswered and is tantamount to an act of aggression against the people of Kenya and their resources.
“This outrageous and provocative auction deserves and will be met with a unanimous and resounding rejection by all Kenyans as well as all people of goodwill who believe in the maintenance of international law and order and the peaceful and legal resolution of disputes,” the PS Kamau said.
The area in contest is about 100,000 square kilometres, forming a triangle east of the Kenyan coast.
Somalia, which lies to the north of Kenya, wants the maritime border to continue along the line of the land border, to the southeast.
Kenya however wants the sea border to go in a straight line east, giving it more sea territory.
The buyers at Somalia’s auction are said to be from United Kingdom and Norway. Somalia Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khayre is a citizen of Norway.
Amb Macharia said that the government demanded that Somalia withdraws an incorrect map that it had issued at the time it auctioned the oil and gas blocks in Kenyan territory.
He said that the Kenyan government had already presented its decisions over the matter to the highest level of the Somali Government.
In 2009, Kenya and Somalia had reached an MoU and deposited it at the UN. It proclaimed that the sea border should run eastwards.
This is the latest flashpoint in the relations between the two countries that have been significantly tested in recent years over their diametrically opposed views on the leadership of Ahmed Mohamed Islam alias Madobe, the regional president of Jubaland State in southern Somalia where Kenyan troops are stationed.
Whereas Nairobi has thrown its full support behind Mr Madobe, the Somalia government of President Mohamed Abdullahi alias Farmajo, is waging a determined campaign for his removal when the Jubaland elections are held in August. Kenya played a big role in Mr Madobe’s election in 2013.
Credible sources say that, earlier in the year, President Uhuru Kenyatta sent a delegation of Kenyan-Somali elders to try and convince President Farmajo to reconsider his position on Mr Madobe.
President Kenyatta’s request, our source revealed, was rejected by the Somalia President who told the Kenyan delegation that Nairobi could pick another candidate to replace Mr Madobe.
The relations between the two neighbours were further tested in August last year when the Kenyan security authorities opened investigations into how Somalia’s deputy head of intelligence Ahmed Fahad Dahir, a key ally of President Farmajo, had acquired Somalia and Kenyan passports.
Mr Dahir, a former journalist-turned spy has been instrumental in Mogadishu’s pivot towards Qatar and away from Doha’s neighbours — Saudi Arabia, Eqypt and United Arab Emirates — who have blockaded it since mid-2017.