The Somali government on Wednesday again defended a maritime agreement signed with Kenya last month that caused huge controversy in the war-torn east African country.
The two governments last Month signed a memorandum of understanding on their maritime boundary which the two countries say will facilitate the presentation of both country's submissions to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf by May as required under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
"This (memorandum of understanding) is not about the government giving other country a span of our land or sea. It is about Kenya and Somalia granting each other non-objection in respect of their submissions on the Outer Limits of the Continental Shelf to the Commission," Mohamed Abdullahi Omaar, Somali foreign minister, told reporters in Mogadishu.
However, the maritime agreement between Somalia and its southern neighbor has caused an uproar in Somalia and is increasingly being seen by many including some officials within the Somali government as being compromising the territorial integrity and ceding land to Kenya.
The deal is expected to be brought before the Somali parliament soon with some ministers to be questioned regarding the maritime agreement with Kenya. Meanwhile, the Somali foreign minister accused some foreign ships of "illegal fishing and of dumping industrial waste into Somali waters," saying that helps piracy by providing bandits excuses to launch attacks off the Somali coast.
Piracy is rife in the Somali coastal waters and in the Gulf of Aden. Nearly 20 ships with nearly 250 crew members are being held hostage for ransom by Somali pirates who operate in an ever increasingly widening area in the Indian ocean.
Several countries have deployed warships in the troubled east Africa waters to protect ships from hijacking by local pirates, who claim to be protecting Somali waters from foreign ships involved in illegal fishing and the dumping of dangerous industrial waste into the coast.
Somalia, which has not had an effective central government for nearly two decades, does not have the navy or a strong army to protect its territorial waters from the rampant piracy, illegal fishing and the dumping of industrial waste by foreign ships.
Source: Xinhua
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