Solomon Islands and Vanuatu have signed a Maritime Border Treaty on Friday ending 33 years of negotiations over the common border of the two nations south of the Solomon Islands and north of Vanuatu.
?The signing took place on Mota Lava Island of Vanuatu’s Torba Province between the Prime Minister of Solomon Islands, Manasseh Sogavare and his Vanuatu counterpart, Prime Minister Charlot Salwai Tabimasmas.?
The historic treaty concluded the wish of the two governments to settle upon a maritime boundary line in an area of the sea where their 200-mile zone overlap, demarcated along resolved coordinates calculated based on the strict median approach dividing the two sovereign nations, between the northern region of Vanuatu and the southern regions of the Solomon Islands.?
The treaty builds on from a Memorandum signed in 2015 of both countries made with respect to their collective boundaries of delimitation.?The new demarcation of the boundary will recognize and resolves to protect the similar cultures that existed on the border communities of both countries and the cultural exchanges and trade that existed on its history, and ensuring the continuity of those practices as the means to reinforce the spirit of Melanesian brotherhood