SA, Cuba relations 'excellent'
Shaun Benton
30 January 2006Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque has described political relations between his country and South Africa as "excellent".
The two countries wrapped up their yearly joint consultative forum with a press conference at Cape Town International Airport on Sunday.
Normally the consultative forum involves deputy ministers, but this year it was decided to hold the talks at ministerial level, South African Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said.
The two ministers briefed each other about the state of their countries and regional developments. Perez Roque said he briefed Dlamini-Zuma on recent developments in Latin America and was in turn briefed on progress towards the integration of Africa.
Non-Aligned Movement
Apart from talks on the African Union and Nepad (New Partnership for Africa's Development) and conflict resolution in Africa, discussions included cooperation between the two countries
in multilateral forums, cooperation between the G77 and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), and reform of the United Nations, Perez Roque said.
Earlier, in opening remarks, Perez Roque said it was significant that South Africa was leading the Group of 77 (G-77) while Cuba was getting ready to assume the chairperson-ship of the NAM.
"We now have an opportunity to shape the United Nations in a drastically changed international paradigm," Dlamini-Zuma said in her opening remarks.
Solidarity
Following an earlier meeting of the ministerial troika of the NAM that included the foreign minister of Malaysia, Perez Roque said the ministers jointly recognised the importance of the NAM in the "defence of multilateralism" and the "defence of Third World countries."
In a joint statement on the talks released by the Department of Foreign Affairs, South Africa expressed its solidarity with Cuba's struggle against the economic blockade by the United States against the small Caribbean island.
They also discussed the issue of Iran's pursuit of a nuclear capability, and said they recognised, as leading members of the NAM, Iran's right to develop technology for nuclear energy for peaceful reasons.
Perez Roque said Iran also had a right to engage in "enrichment activities" to produce nuclear fuel, but added that the NAM was against all nuclear weapons and supported the "total elimination of nuclear weapons, with international verification".
The Non-Aligned Movement is against the proliferation of nuclear weapons and had been wanting, over the years, to begin negotiations, as part of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, "to achieve the total elimination of nuclear weapons around the world," he added.
Source: BuaNews
