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Nigeria agrees to exit disputed territory in deal with Cameroon
AFP
MANHASSET, New York
Petroleumworld.com 06 13 06Nigeria agreed Monday to exit the oil-rich Bakassi peninsula within 60 days in a UN-brokered deal with Cameroon to settle their long-simmering dispute, UN chief Kofi Annan announced.
The landmark deal for Abuja withdrawing its troops from the territory was reached at a UN-mediated summit between Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and his Cameroonian counterpart Paul Biya in this New York suburb.
"The Nigerian troops will withdraw in 60 days," Annan, who hosted the summit, told reporters after the two presidents signed the agreement.
"If it is absolutely necessary the parties have allowed me to offer a brief extension not exceeding an additional 30 days" for the withdrawal of the estimated 2,000 Nigerian troops from Bakassi, the UN secretary general said.
Under a 2002 ruling by the International Court of Justice, sovereignty over the territory was awarded to Cameroon.
The strategic peninsula is a potentially oil-rich 1,000 square kilometer (400 square mile) patch of Atlantic coastal swamp with access to coveted fishing grounds.
Annan said Nigeria would have to end its administration of the territory within two years and the Nigerian population of the peninsula would be given the option of staying under Cameroonian rule or be repatriated back to Nigeria.
"With today's agreement on the Bakassi peninsula, a comprehensive resolution of the dispute is within our grasp," Annan said.
He called on the international community to fully support the accord, which was witnessed and endorsed by representatives of the United States, Britain, France and Germany.
The agreement provides for creation of a follow-up committee composed of representatives of Nigeria, Cameroon, the United Nations and the four witness countries to monitor implementation.
Obasanjo called the deal "a happy and equitable solution." Monday's gathering is the fifth summit on the festering issue between Obasanjo and Biya, who last met in Malta on the sidelines of a Commonwealth summit last November.
Several thousand Nigerians live on the Bakassi peninsula, and Obasanjo's government has missed several deadlines to pull a large Nigerian military detachment out of the territory, despite promising to cooperate with a UN-led disengagement plan.
"It's a very difficult, very sensitive problem," Annan's special representative for West Africa, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah of Mauritania, said.
The Bakassi dispute led to military clashes between the two neighbors in the early 1990s.
But in 2002, Obasanjo and Biya agreed at a Geneva summit to establish a UN-backed Cameroon-Nigeria mixed commission to tackle the issue.
They also agreed on the need for confidence-building measures, including the eventual demilitarization of the Bakassi peninsula, with the possibility of deploying international observers to monitor the withdrawal.
"After many years of work, we hope that the summit will help reach a lasting solution," said Ould-Abdallah, who chairs the Dakar-based joint commission established by Annan at the request of the two African presidents.
A year ago Cameroon accused Nigeria of launching attacks on its own military in Bakassi.
In January a session of the joint commission for resolving the matter was postponed pending a meeting between the two heads of state with Annan to discuss new proposals for a Nigerian withdrawal from Bakassi.
Some progress has been made on delineating the rest of the 1,690 kilometer (1,056 mile) border, with a number of areas around Lake Chad changing sovereignty.
Among oustanding issues that will need to be addressed will be what to do with the sizable Nigerian population on Bakassi, officials said.
Monday's summit is being held on the 1.8 square kilometer (438 acre) Greentree estate owned by the family of the late John Hay Whitney, a US multi-millionaire diplomat, financier and philanthropist.
"It's a harmonious place that lends itself, we hope, to a positive outcome of difficult diplomatic discussions," said Dujarric.
The Whitney foundation makes it available to the United Nations for retreats, including by the Security Council.
AFP 12 1939 GMT 06 06
Copyright ©2006 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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