Andrew
Leroy Dzenga
Zimbabwe is following up on agreements it entered with Algeria, as it seeks to elevate ties from bilateral cooperation to commercial diplomacy.
Foreign Affairs and International Trade deputy Minister, David Musabayana, was last week in the North African country attending the 9th African Union Seminar on Peace and Security, which ran from December 7 to 9.
On the sidelines of the event, deputy Minister Musabayana met with Algerian Foreign Affairs Minister Ramtane Lamamra to discuss relations between the two countries.
Speaking to The Sunday Mail Online from Oran in Algeria, deputy Minister Musabayana said the two countries have been signing agreements for a while, and there is consensus that it is time to take the relations a notch higher.
“We spoke over bilateral consultations, we agreed that as sister countries we have come a very long way, and we have shared a lot of platforms where we have been agreeing in terms of consultations.
“We are countries that are grounded on our Pan-African principles and respect for the independence of nations and also their self-determination,” said deputy Minister Musabayana.
He said the meeting identified the need to ensure that the sisterhood between Zimbabwe and Algeria shows on the balance sheet.
“We have been escalating our relationship, so that we move towards commercial diplomacy.
“We want to scale them up to a level where we see the trade of goods and services,” he said.
Meanwhile, deputy Minister Musabayana, in his presentation at the AU Peace and Security Seminar, said the African Union (AU) should continue engaging with the United Nations and other global bodies to look at how unilateral sanctions are affecting countries’ capacity to self-sustain.
“The (AU Sub-Committee on sanctions) should explain that Zimbabwe is a living case in point, of the retrogressive nature of sanctions, as the country has been economically weighed down under the yoke of illegal sanctions.
“As a result, Government has been strained in its interventions to provide public goods and services for its people and cushion the most vulnerable in society,” said deputy Minister Musabayana.
Zimbabwe-Algeria relations date back to the liberation struggle.
Algeria has been among the most vocal African countries in the call against illegal sanctions imposed on the country by the West.
Online Reporter