Nairobi — The Kenya government has entered discussions with Tanzanian authorities for the return of Mt Kilimanjaro. Dr M Zaha, an undersecretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, yesterday confirmed that the issue had been brought up with Tanzanian authorities and would soon be discussed by the East African Community's Council of Ministers in Arusha.

In 1886, when the governments of Germany and Britain agreed on a border to officially define their territories, the line they drew - from Lake Victoria to the coast - was perfectly straight, broken only by an untidy curve around the mountain. It has long been believed the British monarch Queen Victoria granted Kilimanjaro to her German grandson, Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert (later Kaiser Wilhelm II) in 1886. The East African Standard was able to independently establish that an earlier handover proposal based on this historical account failed after the British Foreign Office disputed its accuracy.

Further research by the ministry established that the mountain was actually ceded to the Society for German Colonisation, run by German explorer Dr Karl Peters, by various Chagga chieftains in Tanganyika. Discussions are expected to centre around the validity of these treaties. Dr Zaha added that the Ministry does not expect any resistance to the plan from Tanzania as the Wachagga have long regarded the mountain to be cursed. We were unable to reach Tourism Minister Raphael Tuju for comment.