ADDIS ABABA, 9 March. /TASS/. The Minister of foreign Affairs of Russia Sergey Lavrov on Friday has completed his African tour. The last item on his programme was Ethiopia, here at the same time was the Secretary of state Rex Tillerson. Russia has proposed to organize meetings of foreign Ministers, but the Ministers never met.
However, Lavrov had a full program in the African country – he held talks with the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat a, as well as Minister of foreign Affairs of Ethiopia Workneh, Gebeyehu, acting Prime Minister, Hailemariam Dessalines and President Mulatu Teshome.
The meeting of Lavrov and Tillerson did not take place
U.S. Secretary of state arrived in Ethiopia on the day before the Russian Minister, the Ministers of foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation and the United States settled in the same hotel Sheraton Addis.
Deputy foreign Minister of Russia Sergey Ryabkov on March 5 reported that Russia has offered US to use this opportunity to organize the negotiations of Ministers. However the head a press-services of the Department of state Heather Nauert said that Washington had not received such proposals from Moscow. In the end, the initiative remained unanswered, and at the Russian Embassy in the United States promised that the next time would be to publish copies of official documents Twitter.
“The meeting was not held and will not be held,” put an end to this story Ryabkov. “We will look for another opportunity,” he told TASS.
“Family reunion”
Before the beginning of the press conference following the talks, foreign Ministers of the moderator said that for Ethiopia the visit of the Russian Minister “is equivalent to the family reunion.”
In addition, according to Kulikova, Russia is beneficial for the development of trade-economic relations, including the production and sale in Africa mineral resources, products of tropical farming (coffee, cocoa, citrus), the increase in imports into Russia of fruits, vegetables, which largely replaced the production of the EU after the entry of the Russian kontrsanktsy. In turn, Russia could supply to the countries of the Black continent grain as well as fertilizers, machinery, weapons, equipment and other goods.
The results of the talks Lavrov in each of the five countries demonstrated that in all these and other areas specific agreements already reached and implemented, or are in the advanced stage of development. For example, in Angola, it was reported that more Russian companies are showing interest to gain in Luanda partners and to establish cooperation with them: “KAMAZ”, “Rosneft”, “Zarubezhneft”, “Gazprom Neft”, “Sukhoi Civil aircraft”, Rosatom. This year will have the first meeting of the intergovernmental Commission on trade-economic cooperation of Russia and Angola.
In Windhoek the Minister of foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation and its Namibian counterpart agreed to improve the legal base for the development of relations, and one of the documents will be signed soon, “Rosatom” completes negotiations for the conclusion of an agreement with Namibia on cooperation in the sphere of peaceful atom. In Mozambique, the flag of which with the image of the Kalashnikov assault rifle symbolizes a long and successful military-technical cooperation with Russia, the foreign Minister drew attention to the latest Russian design, which told President Vladimir Putin in the message to the Federal Assembly, and in April held the first meeting of the bilateral intergovernmental Commission.
In Zimbabwe, discussed the implementation of the project development joint venture of one of the world’s largest platinum deposits in Darwendale, while in Ethiopia it became known about the preparation of intergovernmental agreements in the sphere of military-technical cooperation and education.
“With the expansion of our interests in Africa, our proposals on cooperation the field for potential conflicts and competition with other players will grow”, – said Kulikov. She noted that not only Russia is committed to help Africa build a nuclear power plant. “There is already serious competition, and there have been cases counter to the interests of Russia”, – the expert reminded. In this direction, according to her, Russia has benefits, such as cheaper and more reliable compared with the French reactors, willingness to share technologies.
