Wednesday October 23, 2019
NAIROBI (HOL) - Somalia has rubbished claims the US ambassador to Kenya met with President Mohamed Farmaajo over the maritime case during a visit to Mogadishu.
Responding to media reports that ambassador Kyle McCarter met President Farmajo to convince him withdraw the case at the International Court of Justice, Somali ambassador to Kenya Mohamed Nur Tarsan said the claims were unfounded.
“There no meeting between the ambassador and President Mohamed Farmaajo when the ambassador visited Somalia some months ago,” said Tarsan in a Facebook post. The Somali diplomat said the Kenyan newspaper which published the claims should verify its facts.In an interview with Kenya’s Daily Nation published Tuesday, ambassador McCarter is quoted as saying he had persuaded President Farmaajo to pull off the case currently at the ICJ.
“I’ve been to Mogadishu to speak to the Somalia president. I told him to pull off the court case,” the quote from the interview reads.
The report raised heated debate in the social media with some Somali netizens wondering how a U.S ambassador representing Kenya could travel to Mogadishu over the matter yet there was already a substantive US ambassador in Kenya.
There was no official response from the US embassy in Kenya over the matter but an unverified statement in the social media attributed to the ambassador says the ambassador confirmed visiting Somalia but did not meet President Farmaajo. Instead, the statement reads, the ambassador met the president’s advisors.