APA-Pretoria (South Africa) South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has described the weekend’s diplomatic offensive by African leaders to seek an end to hostilities between Russia and Ukraine as “impactful and successful”.
Speaking to journalists after returning home on Sunday, Ramaphosa said the African Peace Mission’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was “historic” – and the only one that managed to see the two European leaders in back-to-back engagements.
The mission’s ultimate goal was to help end the war, and the South African leader said he believed the African group had made a positive contribution to this process.
“I think the most important outcome of these discussions were one: The willingness to talk,” Ramaphosa said.
He added. “The other one is the willingness by the two leaders to go through the various issues that we raised and the commitment that we will engage further.”
The African Peace Mission – which comprised Ramaphosa, Comoros President Azali Assoumani, Senegalese President MAcky Sall and Zambia’s President Hakainde Hichilema –met with Zelenskyy in Kyiv on June 16 and with Putin in St Petersburg on June 17.
Ramaphosa said the African group would continue “our discussions with President Putin during the upcoming Russia-Africa Summit and in the intervening period, we will be talking to President Zelenskyy because we would like to know his response to some of the other issues we raised.”
Meanwhile, a group of a 120-member team comprising local journalists, police officers and soldiers who were denied passage to both Ukraine and Russia by the Polish authorities, due to the nature of weapons they were carrying on their flight, also returned home on Sunday without covering the visit.
NM/jn/APA