Pres­i­dent Uhuru Keny­atta and his So­ma­lia coun­ter­part Mo­hamed Ab­dul­lahi Mo­hamed held a meet­ing at State­house Nairobi and dis­cussed a wide range of is­sues touch­ing on se­cu­rity, trade and in­vest­ment, civil avi­a­tion and other is­sues af­fect­ing the two coun­tries.

The two Heads of State also talked about the need to rein­vig­o­rate ef­forts to scale up col­lab­o­ra­tion in mu­tual ar­eas of in­ter­est iden­ti­fied dur­ing the in­au­gural ses­sion of the Joint Com­mis­sion for Co­op­er­a­tion that was held in Nairobi in July 2015.

They in­clude ed­u­ca­tion, agri­cul­ture, re­sources shar­ing and de­vel­op­ment, live­stock de­vel­op­ment, fish­eries, tourism, im­mi­gra­tion, labour and health.

In his maiden visit as the Pres­i­dent of So­ma­lia, Mr Mo­hammed was re­ceived at State­house Nairobi in a colour­ful cer­e­mony on Thurs­day morn­ing, and was ac­corded full ho­n­ours com­plete with a 21-gun salute.

Mr Mo­hammed in­spected his first guard of ho­n­our mounted by a de­tach­ment of the Kenya Army while the na­tional an­thems of both coun­tries were played by the mil­i­tary band.

Last month, Pres­i­dent Keny­atta at­tended the in­au­gu­ra­tion of Pres­i­dent Mo­hamed in Mo­gadishu and pledged Kenya’s con­tin­ued sup­port to the Horn of Africa coun­try.

The Kenyan leader as­sured the new So­mali Pres­i­dent that Kenya would re­main stead­fast in sup­port­ing ef­forts that would bring peace and sta­bil­ity in So­ma­lia.

DI­RECT FLIGHTS

Dur­ing the meet­ing, Kenya and So­ma­lia opened a new char­ter of co­op­er­a­tion by an­nounc­ing plans to open two bor­der posts and a re-launch of di­rect flights be­tween Nairobi and Mo­gadishu.

Pres­i­dent Uhuru Keny­atta said Kenya and So­ma­lia have agreed to re­vi­tal­ize their en­gage­ment in all ar­eas of mu­tual in­ter­ests within the con­text of a re­ac­ti­vated joint com­mis­sion of co­op­er­a­tion.

“In par­tic­u­lar, we agreed to take the fol­low­ing ac­tions: Within the short­est pos­si­ble time, open two bor­der posts in Dhob­ley-Li­boi, and Man­dera-Bu­la­hawa. And to fa­cil­i­tate the move­ment of peo­ple, goods and ser­vices,” Pres­i­dent Keny­atta said.

Deputy Pres­i­dent William Ruto, For­eign Af­fairs Cab­i­net Sec­re­taries Am­ina Mo­hamed (for­eign af­fairs), Joseph Nkaissery (se­cu­rity), Ray­chelle Omamo (de­fence), James Macharia (trans­port), Cleopa Mailu (health), Willy Bett (agri­cul­ture), Mwangi Ki­un­juri (de­vo­lu­tion) and Dan Kazungu (min­ing) at­tended the bi­lat­eral talks.

Pres­i­dent Keny­atta said the two neigh­bour­ing coun­tries have re­solved that forth­with there will be no visa re­quire­ment for diplo­matic and ser­vice pass­port hold­ers from both coun­tries.

“We also agreed to meet reg­u­larly to mon­i­tor the progress of our bi­lat­eral re­la­tions,” Pres­i­dent Keny­atta said, terming Pres­i­dent Mo­hamed’s visit a fresh start to the two coun­tries’ close ties.

Pres­i­dent Mo­hamed lauded Kenya as one of So­ma­li­a’s strongest ally and part­ners in East Africa, host­ing the largest num­ber of So­mali refugees for decades and con­tribut­ing to the peace and sta­bil­ity of So­ma­lia through the African Union Mis­sion in So­ma­lia (AMI­SOM).

“Our co­op­er­a­tion is in­deed crit­i­cal to our his­toric re­la­tions and our con­tin­u­ous ef­forts to fight in­se­cu­rity and poverty,” said Pres­i­dent Mo­hamed.