(AFP) – OUAGADOUOU — Burkina Faso and Niger are to ask the International Court of Justice to settle their long-running border dispute, the Burkinabe foreign minister said Saturday.
Alain Bedouma told AFP both countries’ governments had agreed to the court’s jurisdiction in the disagreement, allowing them to make a formal application at the court in The Hague.
The two west African countries, both former French colonies, have had difficulties agreeing their common border, which is about 650 kilometres (400 miles) long.
Bedouma said the ICJ’s expertise in settling border disputes was known around the world and both countries would abide by its decision. The minister did not say when the court would start work on the case. In 2006, the ICJ settled a long-running territorial dispute between Niger and Benin, when it ruled that Niger had ownership the disputed island of Lete on the River Niger that straddles their common border.