Staff Reporter.
President Cyril Ramaphosa spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin over the phone on Wednesday evening, the Kremlin has confirmed.
It said the two leaders discussed “issues related to the well-known African initiative to find a solution to the Ukrainian conflict”.
Preparations for the second Russia Africa summit, scheduled for late July in St Petersburg and the upcoming BRICS summit in Johannesburg in August, were also discussed.
Meanwhile, African leaders met on Monday, and “agreed that they would engage” Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “on the elements for a ceasefire and a lasting peace in the region,” a statement from Ramaphosa’s office said.
“The presidents confirmed their availability to travel to Ukraine and Russia in mid-June,” it said, without giving a specific date or itinerary.
Ramaphosa later told a press conference in Pretoria alongside the visiting Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa that Monday’s meeting “confirmed that we now are at a stage where we are going visit Kyiv and Moscow”.
“Our mission is a peace mission,” he said, “and we want to dub it as a road to peace.”
He said the African leaders would be “seeking to get a commitment on both sides that they too should seek… to end this conflict through peaceful means”.
Ramaphosa told the media on Tuesday that he will make his decision on Putin’s visit to South Africa for the BRICS summit after receiving a report from the inter-ministerial committee dealing with the matter.
South Africa is under pressure to arrest the Russian leader due to the arrest warrant issued against him by the International Criminal Court.
“The inter-ministerial committee met yesterday (Monday) and obviously they are still finalising their minutes and their report and the report will be presented to the appropriate structure, me first and thereafter it will either go to Cabinet tomorrow or another day,” the president said.
“So let’s wait for the normal course of things before spreading rumours and untruths. What I can guarantee is that this matter will be well handled, and I will make the announcement,” said Ramaphosa.
The cabinet is expected to address the media on Thursday afternoon on the outcomes of this week’s meeting and the possible findings of the inter-ministerial committee.
© Agence France-Presse.
Compiled by Lehlohonolo Lehana.