Africa: Angolan President, South Africa Discuss DRC and Rwanda Situation

Estacio Valoi / Deutsche Welle
President Paul Kagame (file photo).
1 July 2022
Angola Press Agency (Luanda)

Luanda — Angolan president João Lourenço spoke Thursday by telephone with the President of South Africa, Ciryl Ramaphosa, to whom he provided detailed information on the mediation process between the Democratic Republics of Congo and Rwanda.

The Angolan Head of State leads the mediation process aimed at normalizing relations between the Democratic Republics of Congo and Rwanda.

According to a press release from the Secretary for Institutional Communication and Press Affairs of the President of the Republic, which reached ANGOP, during the contact, the Head of State noted the progress that diplomatic efforts have registered.

He mentioned, among others, the achievement, at this moment in Luanda, of the meeting of the Permanent Joint Rwanda-Democratic Congo Commission, which had not been held for ten years.

The meeting was one of the decisions of the recent Tripartite Summit in Luanda, led by President João Lourenço.

President Ciryl Ramaphosa expressed his interest in having at the next SADC summit, scheduled for next August, detailed information on the mediation process that Angola is carrying out.

The two presidents agreed to use conventional diplomatic mechanisms for the circulation of information, in order to keep SADC bodies abreast of developments.

On the other hand, the South African president wanted Angola to hold peaceful elections in an atmosphere of harmony, on 24 August.

The new crisis between the two Central African countries, members of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (CIRGL), began on 27 May of this year, when the DRC openly accused Rwanda of supporting the M23 rebel group, which re-emerged in the province of North Kivu, in the Congolese-Democratic East.

The Angolan Head of State, João Lourenço, in his capacity as president of the ICGLR, has maintained regular contacts with his counterparts in the DRC and Rwanda, in the search for consensus and an attempt to avoid a major armed conflict in the region.

In addition to Angola, DRC and Rwanda, ICGLR is made up of Burundi, Republic of Congo, Central African Republic (CAR), Sudan, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

The organisation was created with the aim of resolving issues of peace and security, after the political conflicts that marked the region in 1994.

Read the original article on ANGOP.

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