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Bloomberg
Kenya has decided to withdraw from a maritime-border case with Somalia, ahead of a hearing at the International Court of Justice scheduled for Monday, Nairobi-based Sunday Nation reported.
The decision is partly because of the failure to accept Kenya’s request to further delay hearings due to coronavirus-related disruptions, the newspaper said, citing documents whose source it didn’t disclose.
A spokesperson at Kenya’s foreign affairs ministry couldn’t immediately comment to Bloomberg on Sunday. A call to a spokesperson at the ICJ wasn’t answered out of normal business hours.
The case relates to claims of ownership by Kenya and neighbouring Somalia to a 150,000 square-kilometer (58,000 square-mile) area off their Indian Ocean coastline. Both countries are looking to explore the area for oil, gas and fish.
In 2014, Somalia went to court to challenge a 2009 agreement that set its maritime border along latitudinal lines extending 450 nautical miles into the sea.