Kenya and Ethiopia out to tighten border security

More than 60 Kenyan and Ethiopian delegates on Wednesday held a meeting aimed at maintaining peace, security and stability at the border of the two countries.

Speaking to journalists at Reef Hotel in Mombasa when he opened the 31st Kenya-Ethiopia joint boarder administrators meeting, Interior Cabinet Secretary Mr Nkaissery said the summit was meant to touch on security matters at the border.

“The two countries have been faced with problems to do with Al-Shabaab attacks, illegal immigration and water conflict at the border and that is what we want to discuss and see what best we can implement to ensure we maintain security,” said Mr Nkaissery.

He said there has been a challenge in implementation of decisions in some of agreements signed between the two countries on security matters.

Mr Nkaissery cited the 1970 boundary treaty between the two countries saying there was need for its review.

“In order to serve the best interests of the two countries, we must constantly review the implementation of our agreements and make available resources to make them fully operational. Dynamics both in security and economics have taken place so we are looking in totality the whole agreement to see how it will suit the interest of the two countries,” said Mr Nkaissery.

BOUNDARY PILLARS

Mr Nkaissery challenged the delegates to come up with suitable ideas that will hasten the inspection of the boundary pillars, which he said was one of the focus of the meeting which is conducted after every two years.

“In the last two years we have successfully conducted joint exercise which yielded positive results where we inspected and completed 43 km of the approximately 861 km of the boundary this means that at the moment the current rate of the maintenance will need more than 40 years to complete,” he said.

Head of Ethiopia delegation, Ambassador Girma Temesgen said it was important to put more pro-active mechanisms to monitor the implementations of the said decisions.

“I am glad that the meeting has provided us an opportunity to deliberate implementation challenges. It now my believe that we will also build bridges that will bring the two countries even more closer and deal with the challenges that we face in common,” he said.

Ethiopian Ambassador to Kenya Dina Mufti said the two countries will continue working together in tackling issues affecting them at the border and ensure they meet their economic achievements.