Angolan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Manuel Domingos Augusto and Rwandan president Paul Kagame have met to promote peace and security through the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR).
ICGLR is an inter-governmental organisation comprising 12 countries of the Great Lakes region.
The meeting comes after Presidents Kagame, Lourenço and Felix Tshisekedi of DR Congo signed a tripartite agreement in Kinshasa in May 2019, during which they agreed to strengthen cooperation in the area of security, with the objective of uprooting all non-state armed groups in the region that continue to threaten state security.
The three heads of state agreed to strengthen cooperation between their countries and to invite other regional leaders to the tripartite axis in order to find ways to get rid of the Congolese and foreign armed groups and other questions related to the security of the states.
Most of these groups are based in DR Congo and they include FDLR, the offshoot of the forces largely blamed for the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, which claimed the lives of more than a million people. They also include the RNC of Rwandan renegade General Kayumba Nyamwasa, linked to fatal grenade attacks in Rwanda between 2010 and 2014.
When the ICGLR was born, with Angola at the fore, there was intense shuttle diplomacy.
The other members were Rwanda, Burundi, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, DR Congo, Kenya, Sudan, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
A diplomatic source in Kigali revealed that during bilateral consultations held in Kigali, Angola and Rwanda have agreed to implement their political consensus that “they are cooperative partners supporting each other’s peaceful development,” and push bilateral exchanges and cooperation in various fields to a new level.
Meeting in Luanda during March 2019, the Angolan President, João Lourenço and his Rwandan counterpart, Paul Kagame, discussed the strengthening of bilateral relations and the situation in the Great Lakes region.
The two countries have, among others, reached an agreement in the field of civil aviation, signed in Kigali, which aims to establish and operate air services between the two states, as well as security and public order.
Cooperation between Angola and Rwanda, member countries of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR), takes place within the framework of regional peace and security issues.
– APA
