Kenya has decided to withdraw from a maritime-border case with Somalia, ahead of a hearing at the International Court of Justice scheduled for Monday, Nairobi-based Sunday Nation reported.

The decision is partly because of the failure to accept Kenya’s request to further delay hearings due to coronavirus-related disruptions, the newspaper said, citing documents whose source it didn’t disclose.

A spokesperson at Kenya’s foreign affairs ministry couldn’t immediately comment to Bloomberg on Sunday. A call to a spokesperson at the ICJ wasn’t answered out of normal business hours.

The case relates to claims of ownership by Kenya and neighboring Somalia to a 150,000 square-kilometer (58,000 square-mile) area off their Indian Ocean coastline. Both countries are looking to explore the area for oil, gas and fish.
In 2014, Somalia went to court to challenge a 2009 agreement that set its maritime border along latitudinal lines extending 450 nautical miles into the sea.