East Africa: Ethio-Kenya Joint Ministerial Commission to Elevate Ties

20 February 2024
The Ethiopian Herald (Addis Ababa)
By Yesuf ENDRIS

The 36th Ethio-Kenya Joint Ministerial Commission Meeting (JMC), which is happening after seven years of interruptions, is expected to take bold steps to elevate the multifaceted relations, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) disclosed.

Speaking at the opening of the meeting yesterday, MoFA African Affairs Director General Ambassador Fiseha Shawel said that the JMC is expected to adopt a new comprehensive memorandum of understandings. Moreover, the involvement of over 35 institutions of the two countries is demonstrating the session's importance.

"Ethiopia and Kenya are intertwined by geographic, cultural, historical, and economic and many more bonds. "The joint ministerial commission is a foundation helping to deepen the cooperation... terrorism, migration, human trafficking, illegal trade and climate change are still problem of the region to be resolved through robust partnership."

Though it had been delayed because of several reasons including the COVID-19, the ministerial meeting has been an instrumental in enhancing the two countries social, economic and political interaction. Now, Ethiopia is expecting more agreements which could support for the acceleration of already signed agreements on security, economic, and social issues, Ambassador Fiseha elaborated.

Approached by The Ethiopian Herald, Ethiopian Ambassador to Kenya Bacha Debele (General) also said that bilateral agreements will be signed tomorrow at the closing of the session.

According to him, the discussion is being underway under three clusters; foreign relations and security cluster, economic cluster and social cluster. "Then all clusters are expected to reach common cooperation agreement or memorandum of understandings."

Ambassador to Kenya Bacha further highlighted that Kenya is expected to improve the Visa ad immigration processes to Ethiopian nationals. "It is one agenda of the meeting, so we are optimistic that Kenya will agree on the proposal."

Kenyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Political and Diplomatic Affairs Director General Ambassador MoiL emoshira for his part said that the participation of high-level officials in the meeting is a testimony to the shared desire of advancing thet wo countries multifaceted relations. "Kenya has the highest level of commitment to strengthen the historical ties with Ethiopia."

He further pointed out senior officials of both sides have evaluated the implementation of MoUs and the level of bilateral cooperation and consensus was reached to have a shared path of development in all areas.

Ethiopia and Kenya agreed to reactivate the Joint Ministerial Commission last July in Nairobi.

Read the original article on Ethiopian Herald.

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