Ahead of the next Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg on July 27-28, Russian President Vladimir Putin “must take some actions to show his willingness to move forward” with peace, Senegalese President Macky Sall said. In an interview for “Financial Times” today Sal revealed for the first time that this request was made during the peace mission of African leaders who visited Moscow on June 17. Before that they were in Kyiv.
Sal’s trip was joined by his colleagues from South Africa, Zambia and representatives from Uganda, Egypt, the Republic of Congo and the African Union. “Before the next Russia-Africa summit he [Путин] he needs to take some action to show his willingness to move forward [с мира] even in a humanitarian way,” Sall told the British economic daily in an interview given at the presidential palace in Dakar, the Senegalese capital.
According to him, the further exchange of prisoners of war and the return to Ukraine of children abducted by the Russian occupiers “could be a very good signal.” “That is why we continue to use the Russia-Africa summit to see how we can advance the negotiations that we have tried to bring about between Russia and Ukraine.” Asked if Putin has shown any inclination to pursue peace, Sall said: “I’m not sure. “During this summit, maybe we can have another meeting and make some progress. That’s what we’re hoping for.”
African leaders are stepping up efforts to broker peace between Kiev and Moscow because African countries have been hit hard by soaring inflation caused by war-induced food and energy price hikes. They are among the largest importers of grain and fertilizers from Ukraine and Russia. Although there are no Western sanctions against Russian food and fertilizer exports, customers have complained about banks’ reluctance to process transactions. “We are facing the consequences of this war,” Sal says.
“We have big problems with food security and agriculture. We buy fertilizers from Russia, and today, when the sanctions are in place, there are difficulties in paying for these goods. “That is why we are talking to both countries. We know this is very complicated, but we think it was received positively. Ukraine has said that Russia must leave the territory it occupies before it can negotiate, and we understand that.”
Russia has welcomed the African mission because it hopes to show that it is emerging from its international isolation. But so far she has given no sign that she is inclined to temper her aggressive ambitions towards Ukraine because of the high-level meeting in St. Petersburg.
BACKGROUND
The summit was originally planned to take place in Addis Ababa in October 2022, but was postponed by Russian President Vladimir Putin last July following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The rescheduled summit was supposed to last four days, but on June 21, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced that it would be limited to two due to “refinement” of the program.
The first Russia-Africa Summit was held on October 23-24 in Sochi under the motto “For Peace, Security and Development” and was jointly organized by President Vladimir Putin and President of Egypt Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. 45 African heads of state and two vice presidents participated, as well as 109 ministers and heads of the African Union (AU) Commission, the African Export-Import Bank and a number of regional economic communities.
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2023-07-11 00:43:48
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