Dormant treaties to be revisited

Nigeria and Cameroon agreed on Monday, after a third session of their bilateral commission, to revive all treaties and cooperation agreements between them that were rendered dormant by a simmering border dispute. It was also agreed to urgently renegotiate a trade agreement signed in 1963 and last revised in 1982, according to a joint statement sent to IRIN on Tuesday, signed by Nigeria's Minister for Foreign Affairs, Sule Lamido, and Cameroon's Minister of State for External Relations, Francois Xavier-Ngoubeyou. In addition, the countries agreed to establish permanent committees to deal with immigration and consular issues, in order to ensure that immigrants in each respective country have the "necessary environment for them to live in peace". Other issues addressed during the three-day meeting in Abuja, Nigeria, included the construction and maintenance of roads linking the two countries, and shared security concerns, including plans to resume joint border patrols. The Abuja meeting followed one between President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria and President Paul Biya of Cameroon in France last month. The two presidents pledged then to abide by the ruling of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) later this year on the ownership of the oil-rich Bakassi Peninsula, which is the subject of a dispute between Nigeria and Cameroon. Border skirmishes between the two countries go back to 1982, when several soldiers from both sides died in an incident on their common frontier. The situation degenerated when the Bakassi dispute flared in December 1993. Cameroon filed a complaint on the matter at the ICJ in 1994. Hearings were concluded at the ICJ early this year and a ruling is expected before the end of the year.