Kenya and the United States have signed a defense agreement that will see Kenya receive huge support to lead a multi-national peacekeeping mission to Haiti to combat gang violence.
Kenya’s Defense Minister, Aden Duale and the U.S. Defense Secretary, Lloyd Austin signed the accord at a meeting in Nairobi.
The agreement will also guide the countries’ defense relations for the next five years as the war in East Africa against the al-Qaeda linked al-Shabab extremist group intensifies.
Austin thanked Kenya for volunteering to take the leadership of the Haiti multi-national force and reiterated that the U.S government would work with Congress to secure the one hundred million dollars in funding its pledge on the sidelines of the U.N General Assembly.
Duale said his country was ready to deploy to Haiti and cited Kenya’s “very long history of global peacekeeping” in Kosovo, a European country near Somalia and Congo
