Blantyre (Malawi) (AFP) -
Malawian President Peter Mutharika has affirmed his country's claim to
Lake Malawi as a feud simmers with neighbouring Tanzania over the vast
territory where both sides are hoping to find oil.
"We are not
going to go to war but the lake has been ours for 104 years," Mutharika
told a news conference in the capital Lilongwe late Tuesday, broadcast
on public television.
"The
law is very clear, I think there is very little room for negotiations on
the issue of the lake, but I think we will find a way to settle this
out with Tanzania," he said, the first time he has spoken out on issue
since taking power on May 31.
Based
on an 1890 colonial agreement, Malawi claims ownership of the whole of
Lake Malawi, which is believed to hold both oil and gas reserves.
Tanzania insists that half falls within its borders and is already eyeing it for natural gas exploration.
Mutharika
said he met his Tanzanian counterpart Jakaya Kikwete during the
US-Africa summit in Washington last week and invited him "to come and
fish at the lake".
Former
president Joyce Banda, defeated by Mutharika in the May poll, had often
threatened to take the dispute to the International Court of Justice.
The
contentious part is a largely undeveloped swathe of the lake in the
northeastern waters near Tanzania, where late president Bingu wa
Mutharika, the incumbent's elder brother, allowed a British firm to
explore for oil.
The
29,600-square-kilometre (11,400-square-mile) mass is Africa's
third-largest fresh water body and lies in the Great Lakes system
stretching along the East African Rift.
It is a major tourism attraction in Malawi and straddles one third of the country's territory.
Tanzania calls it Lake Nyasa, taken from Malawi's colonial name.
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