This archive report was first published on 26 September 2019.
On September 25, 2019, an unexpected handshake between President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya and President Mohammed Farmaajo of Somalia took place at the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
The meeting, facilitated by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, aimed to ease tensions between the two nations, which have been at odds over a maritime border dispute.
According to Somalia, the two leaders agreed to normalize ties without affecting the ongoing case at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands.
The dispute, which began when Somalia sued Kenya at the ICJ, seeks to redraw the maritime boundary from its current eastward flow to a diagonal flow, potentially affecting Kenya's access to vast hydrocarbon reserves.
With the meeting's outcome still unclear, one thing is certain: the handshake has sparked renewed hopes for improved relations between Kenya and Somalia.
