Director-General Ayanda Ntsaluba
19 February 2009
Thank you colleagues; this will largely be some information about some of
the important meetings that we will be attending over the next few days.
President Kgalema Motlanthe to Hold Discussions with United Nations (UN)
Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon
Firstly the Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN) Ban Ki-Moon will be
visiting South Africa from the 24 to 26 February. This is a follow up to a
brief discussion - brief encounter that the Secretary-General had with
President Motlanthe during the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa in which he
then expressed the wish to visit South Africa to have further discussion on a
wide range of issues. Of course, the President agreed and these are the dates
that have been suggested by them.
The discussions will involve largely issues around hot spots on the
continent in particular Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC),
Sudan, Somalia and the issues in Madagascar. We also have indications that the
Secretary-General would like to exchange some ideas with respect to the
financial crisis as part of his gathering some thoughts in preparation for 2
April meeting that will be held in London that is a follow up to the Washington
meeting.
He will also discuss issues related to climate change. Obviously, the focus
will be on how to ensure that the Copenhagen meeting in December this year
delivers something that is concrete.
He will also want to exchange ideas on as you know there will be the Durban
review conference which is the follow up to the World Conference against
Racism, Xenophobia and Other Related Intolerances that South Africa hosted in
Durban, this meeting will be held in Geneva from the 20 to 24 April. South
Africa is a country that is seen to have a major role to play in that
meeting.
There will also be some exchange of ideas on how to give momentum to the
process of the UN reform and in particular the reform of the United Nations
Security Council.
As you can pick up from that agenda the President will be assisted by the
Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Finance and Environmental Affairs and
Tourism.
Indications are that the meetings will take place here in Pretoria.
Minister Dlamini Zuma holds Discussions with Mexican Secretary of Foreign
Affairs Patricia Espinosa
Today, you might have picked up already that the minister hosted her
counterpart from Mexico Patricia Espinosa. This is a follow up meeting aimed
largely at strengthening our relations with Mexico. We have taken a conscious
decision on both sides to strengthen the levels of engagement as a result of
the growing importance of South America generally to our foreign policy. Mexico
is a key party to that. As you would recall the Minister recently hosted her
counterpart from Argentina, this is part of that effort.
Also importantly now is that Mexico and South Africa interacted within the
context of the plus five countries that are regularly invited to the G-8. So
our leaders, when they met in Tokyo last year, indicated that we needed to firm
up and structure a significant bilateral interaction. Mexico is also a member
of the UN Security Council now so there will be an exchange of ideas related to
that.
During this visit, there was also a signing of a Memorandum of Understanding
Establishing (MoU) a Binational Commission (BNC) and an Agreement on Avoidance
of Double Taxation and the Prevention of Fiscal evasion with respect to taxes
on income. That is what the meeting was about.
Minister Dlamini Zuma holds discussions with Sudanese Counterpart
We also have a meeting that is taking place tomorrow. Minister Dlamini Zuma
is hosting her counterpart from Sudan Dr Deng Alor Kuol. As you know, the
Foreign Minister of Sudan is more from the SPLM party and he is the Foreign
Minster of the Unity Government in Khartoum.
South Africa has a Joint Bilateral Commission (JBC) with Sudan which
operates both at Ministerial and Senior Officialsâ level. The last session of
the JBC took place on the 7 to 9 of June last year in Khartoum. Also last year,
as part of our engagement with Sudan, we did respond to the humanitarian
situation in Abyei there. We also have a huge programme that we are having with
the government of Southern Sudan which is around capacity building and a number
of activities have taken place.
In the past, we have spoken about that co-operation largely with respect to
the government of the South but there is also structured co-operation with the
Unity Government particularly in the area of police services and on legal and
Parliamentary affairs.
We are engaging Sudan both within the context of strengthening bilateral
relations but bear in mind that we are also the lead country for the African
Union (AU) on the issues of post conflict reconstruction in the Sudan. So the
minister will also try to assess the reading from the Sudanese government as to
where they think we are with respect to some of these challenges.
Obviously, on our side we will be holding these discussions against the
backdrop of the anxiety we have that 2011 is coming pretty soon, around the
referendum and therefore just to get full appreciation from the Sudanese about
how far they think the process is and whether we have got realistic prospects
of making sure that that process hopefully leads to a united Sudan. That is our
position, although we have always said that in line with the agreement that was
reached, we would respect whatever the outcomes of that process.
In the context of the discussions, I think issues around the ICC will come
out. I think last time we did think about those.
Zimbabwe
With respect to Zimbabwe, I think the important thing is that there will be
a meeting in Cape Town tomorrow; there will be a Zimbabwean delegation led by
the new Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai who will be accompanied by the Foreign
Minister Simbarashe S Mumbengegwi and the Finance Minister Tendai Biti. The
corresponding counterparts from South African side will also be attending the
meeting.
The meeting will obviously have some of the senior officials. For now I
think all we can say is that the meeting would be in the context of how now to
address the issues around the reconstruction of Zimbabwe. That will really be
the focus of the meeting. Details with respect to that will emerge after the
meeting.
We will be approaching this meeting against the backdrop of the successful
achievement to a large extend of the implementation of the Road Map that was
agreed upon by the Extra-Ordinary Summit that was held here on 26 January. Our
sense is that there is good progress, I myself have returned yesterday; I was
in Zimbabwe Tuesday and Wednesday and as I said in the past; we will continue
to keep an eye with a view of lending whatever support as South Africa.
One of the areas that we are beginning to discuss with our Zimbabwean
colleagues is to implement the decision of our Cabinet Lekgotla of July last
year which said the Department of Foreign Affairs, leading the International
Relations cluster must make sure that within a relatively short space of time
after the formation of the Unity Government we should be able to facilitate the
meeting of the Joint Co-operation Commission (JCC) between South Africa and
Zimbabwe. We are working out the mechanics of that. Ideally, we would have
wanted to do that within a period of a month to six weeks but we know that will
be the electoral calendar in South Africa. So we are discussing with the
Zimbabwean colleagues and I am sure the meeting tomorrow will help give
structure and content to what will have to be pursued in the framework of the
JCC.
Apart from that we are hoping that the current arrangement, the unity
government will stand the many trials quiet clearly that it is going to face
and many difficulties that lie ahead. But certainly from our region, we are a
bit encouraged by both the discussions that took place in the Zimbabwean
parliament with respect to the budget and the medium term budget statement that
were delivered end of January; by the resounding support for the Amendment 19
and, whatever hick-ups along the way, by the implementation of the Road Map
coming from the South African Development Community (SADC) Extraordinary
Summit.
Situation in the Middle East
We are following very closely the situation in the Middle East following the
inconclusive electoral results in Israel. Of course, we are worried about what
seems the prospects of a hung parliament and probably the prospects that both
Tzipi Livni and Benjamin Netanyahu whoever is finally asked to constitute a
government, that is quiet clear that it is not going to be an easy path and of
course we know that it is going to have significant impact on the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So we are following that very closely and we hope
whatever comes out of that will help advance peace.
South Africa to Host SADC Council of Ministers
We will host also the statutory SADC Council of Ministers in Cape Town. The
Council of Ministers itself will start from the 25 to 27 February and it will
be preceded by a whole range of statutory meetings; meetings of senior
officials and over the weekend the meeting of the finance committee of
SADC.
The items that will receive attention there will include SADC response to
deliberations that took place in Uganda last year between SADC, Common Market
for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and East African Community (EAC)
tripartite. One of the key conclusions from that meeting was the establishment
of the tripartite Federal Transit Administration (FTA) and there were also
benchmarks about studies to be undertaken which will lead to the ministers of
integration and trade meetings some time early in the second part of the year
to look at the practical steps that have to be taken to implement that FTA.
So this will afford SADC to reflect on that and probably to craft a common
position of approach to that.
One of the areas that will be looked at is the progress in the
implementation of the Univisa. As you know, the Univisa project is very
important for us with respect to facilitating movement to our countries
specifically with respect to both the Confederations Cup but more importantly
the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup so that indeed there would be a sense that the
entire region was involved in the activities around that.
There will also be some organisational issues around the strengthening of
the secretariat to better meet the challenges that our region is facing.
There will obviously be a discussion on the financial crisis and what the
regional approach should be. As you may recall even though this is not a
mandated position but our Minister of Finance would obviously have a keen
interest in getting some say from his colleagues with respect to his
participation in the G-20 meeting on 2 April.
The other issue will be the SADC response to the Zimbabwe situation. You
will recall that during the Summit in Lusaka some time back a decision was
taken, which obviously could not progress, for the finance ministers to put
their heads together with the view to look at what package of interventions
would help speed up the process of dealing with the issues in Zimbabwe.
Deputy President Mbete to lead SA delegation to the South Africa-Nigeria
Bi-National Commission (BNC) review meeting
The Deputy President of the Republic Baleka Mbete will be leading a
delegation for the review meeting of the South Africa-Nigeria BNC on 24
February in Abuja. We have spoken before about the importance of that
relationship with Nigeria to South Africa.
Questions and answers
Question: Can you tell us if you are concerned that there are still
detainees in Zimbabwe including Jestina Mukoko and several others that have not
been released? Whether you discussed that issue when you were there? Our
President has already said on record that he does not really believe very much
in these charges of sabotage and training in Botswana and so on.
Answer: Obviously one would have enquired because of the discussions in
Zimbabwe and obviously we would be enquiring from our standpoint that these
issues pose the risk of derailing the process. I would imagine that the issue
of Zimbabwe will be discussed in the Council of Ministers as I indicated. From
a regional perspective I am sure these issues will come out. I am sure there
will be an expectation from the Zimbabwean colleagues to give us their own
assessment of where things are.
But I must say the impression that I got in Zimbabwe is that yes these are
problems; they are actually being attended to and I do know they were the
subject of discussion within the JOMIC and we were assured that between the
President and the Prime Minister there were discussions taking place around
this issue.
I think for us that for now was enough because in a sense we got a sense
that yes there are discussions and hopefully they will be concluded and we will
get an outcome that does not derail the process.
Question: Can you tell us more about the agenda of the meeting of the
Socialist International Commission for Sustainable Communities in Cape Town on
2 March.
Answer: As you know the Socialist International Commission meets virtually
on an annual basis and the focus this year as we understand will be largely
around the issues related to climate change. I am sure there will also be
discussions on the financial crisis.
What they tend to do is to request different countries at particular times
to host them. An official request was indeed made to our President and South
Africa agreed so we will be playing host. This meeting will be in Cape Town, I
think in Kleinmond on 2 March.
Normally the hosting Head of State is free to participate and we know that
there will be an address made by our president. We do not know whether he will
participate for the duration of the meeting but Minister Dlamini Zuma is a
member of that commission and she will be participating in those activities
Question: Regarding the meeting with the Zimbabwe delegation in Cape Town
tomorrow, is it possible to tell us more that you did? Will South Africa be
outlining what form support to Zimbabwe is going to take?
Answer: No I am unable to give more information because the meeting was
requested by the Zimbabwean side and for the time being I am not privy to the
content of what they would be specifically making their representation on. All
we know is that we have been informed who the members of the delegations
are.
Question: Do you have an idea when the ICC is going to make a ruling on
whether they are going to indict al-Bashir?
Answer: The information we have got is that we should expect it before the
end of February. That is all we have.
Issued by: Department of Foreign Affairs
19 February 2009
